Nissan Celebrates 50 Years of Z Cars at Bathurst

It’s been 50 years since the Datsun 240Z was unveiled at the New York Motor Show and quickly became a fixture of grassroots motorsport, and to celebrate that anniversary the Nissan Z Car Club of Queensland decided to hold a little party of its own at Australia’s greatest street circuit.

And by ‘little’, we actually mean gargantuan. The club organised its own special grouping for the Challenge Bathurst Regularity, appropriately dubbed ‘Group Z’, and stuffed it full of 50 Z Cars. The evergreen 240Z and its physically similar successor the 260Z dominated the entry sheet, but one of every generation of Z – from the Datsun 240Z to the present-day Nissan 370Z – was on the grid.

Nissan Australia invited yours truly, WhichCar’s resident Z nerd, to be one of those entrants, and the opportunity to include my own personal car, a 1990 Nissan 300ZX, included in that Z Car family reunion was indeed something special. Not only that, but going wheel-to-wheel with them at full speed around the incredible Mount Panorama circuit was a true privilege.

Video of the event is on the way, but for now, flick through our gallery above to see what it’s like to be on the circuit and wander through the infield at Mount Panorama during the Z Car’s half-century celebration.