The Prince and Skyline Museum - Part II: The Historics

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The Prince/Nissan timeline. Nakajima Aircraft to Nissan.




A model of the hallowed grounds of the late Murayama Factory.




Going down the stairs you first come upon the historic display on Prince and Nissan.





For those WW2 buffs out there will notice the choice of the Nakajima Ki-44 which is not a Zero but a pure high speed interceptor single-seater aircraft. Unlike the zero which was a carrier based fighter with a Mitsubishi airframe. The Ki-44 (and previous Ki-43 were all in house Nakajima designed and built. The engine here is not the Ki-44's but the Sakae 21 of the Zero produced by Nakajima to be mated with the Mitsubishi airframe.




In my past article Zeroes to Skylines  https://clubgrandtouring.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/zeroes-to-skylines-a-link-to-the-past/ the museum also has a section covering the origins of Nissan Prince Motors and the Skyline. Starting with Nakajima Aircraft. The great grandparent of the Skyline





Signature of the first museum director, Shinichiro Sakurai - father of the PGC10 Skyline.








Memorial wall tribute towards Shinichiro Sakurai of him in the field and of his creations.













The second director of the Museum after Sakurai-san, Naganori Ito.









Followed by signatures from signatures from his entire R32 development team for 1989.













Prince Homer, the humble beginnings of prince Motor Company.





The Prince taxi was so lovely.




Prince's first race car, the R380. Based on a modified Brabham BT8 sportscar chassis. The engine technology from this car was transferred to the First Skyline GTR.









The first Skyline coupe.








I'll leave you with Prince's Ford vs Ferrari moment. The R380 duking it out with mighty Porsche 906.





Tune in next time where we'll running through the the first generations of Skylines.


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