It’s been 30 year since Gibson Motorsport and its all-conquering Nissan Skyline GT-R claimed back-to-back Bathurst 1000 wins, and to celebrate the original team got back together.
Nissan Australia and Shannons Insurance reunited team boss Fred Gibson, drivers Jim Richards and Mark Skaife as well as more than 200 former employees at a recent event in Melbourne.
The Gibson Motorsport and Nissan partnership began in the early 1980s running the famous Group C Bluebird and EXA before the Group A regulations saw the team swap to the DR30 Skyline RS and then HR31 Skyline GTS-R. But the two sides really became a powerhouse in 1990 with the introduction of the R32 Skyline GT-R, a twin-turbocharged, all-wheel drive monster that won three consecutive ATCC titles in 1990 and ‘91 with Richards and ‘92 with Skaife.
The pair combined to win Bathurst in 1991 and repeated in controversial circumstances in ‘92 to cap the GT-R’s short but remarkably successful ATCC career.
Nissan and Shannons helped bring together a range of cars from those glory days for the team, and Gibson paid tribute to every member of the squad.
“It was a team and a team effort,” Gibson said. “No one stands out and we're all as equal. All going to do our job and do our job well. And I think that bonded together very well and the team was very successful.”
For Skaife, Gibson Motorsport was a finishing school that helped develop him into a driver that would go on to win a then-record-equalling five touring car crowns and finishing his career with the Holden Racing Team. But Skaife still has very fond memories of his time with Gibson Motorsport.
“The famous nature of what those cars mean to Australian motorsport, but especially to our group, is extraordinary,” Skaife said. “And for Fred in particular, the cars are a very special part of the history of this sport, especially Nissan's involvement in the game.”
Richards also heaped praise on the entire Gibson Motorsport team, in particular its ability to engineer the Skyline GT-R into arguably the best touring car on the planet at the time. Famously the official Nissan Motorsport squad in Japan, Nismo, learnt many valuable lessons from the Australian-developed models.
“You had guys who could do every job you needed to do,” Richards explained. “Fred and the boys reengineered the GT-R to become ‘Australianised’ you might say. So it was a lot stronger and probably a quicker car than what the Japanese had.”
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