As we build up towards the big Le Mans weekend, I will be sharing some the few Le Mans race car photos that I have. This famous 641hp Nissan R390 was one of three cars campaigned in the 1997 Le Mans race. For '97 the cars were done in the striking black and red livery seen above, though I prefer the way the R390's looked in white and blue livery for '98.
I took this photo at the 2008 Nissan Motorsports Exhbition in Yokohama.
-Mike Garrett
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Have you ever seen an r390 on the road? They must be super rare, don't think i've ever seen one in the UK...
If I remember correctly, the only road-going R390 is kept in some Nissan's showroom in Japan, in other words, it was never sold.
It is available for about $1 million. I'm willing to go halfsies with anyone! haha
was the r390 raced in prototype?
oh i thought they had to homologate from road cars, like the old merc clk gtrs and stuff? i thought they had to make quite a few of the road-going versions to make it legal for the le-mans regulations?
ProTreeCRX cars like the Nissan R390 raced in the GT1 category. At the time the cars of this type were fast on their way to becoming full blown prototypes. The Toyota TS020 GT-One, introduced in 1998 was also technically a GT1 car but for all intensive purposes was a full blown prototype.
The organizing body of Le Mans thought so to and for 1999 renamed the class "LMGTP" or Le Mans GT Prototype. The Peugeot prototype you'll see racing at Le Mans this weekend is a direct evolution from these types of cars.
Tom Wheeler: they only had to make 1 version of the car to be eligable for Le Mans.
Octane magazine has written that Driver ANDY WALLACE reckons the Toyoya TS 010 was the "greatest race car he ever drove, the 020 should have won Le Mans but for bad luck in 98/99
This is a lovely Nissan,the IMSA Nissans also were rockets, Geoff Brabham {winner Le Mans in a Pegeuot 905 evo in 93} loved them so much he bought his!