The owner of SL73/116 Yoshikazu Kono resides in Japan.
Below John Starkey details the history of the car:
Built as a Mk3GT coupe, SL73/116 was completed and ready for delivery to the Fujii Company Ltd of Tokyo, Japan on the 26th May 1967. Due to the lengthy amount of time it took to complete the necessary requirements for exporting to Japan, it was early ’68 before the car was crated and loaded at Liverpool docks for shipping to Tokyo.
The Fujii Company had purchased two Mk3 coupe’s, the other being SL73/130, and both arrived at Yokohama Docks on the 1st April ’68 clearing customs two days later. The importation of the cars was handled on behalf of Fujii Company by Reshinguchimu of Tokyo who delivered the crated cars from the Yokohama docks to the Fujii warehouses.
As soon as the crates arrived they were opened for inspection in the presence of Mr Taki and the two young drivers who would be racing the cars, Masahiro Hasemi and Kenjirou Tanake. The Japanese magazine “Auto Sport” was there to record the event with a picture of both freshly uncrated cars on the front cover of the May ’68 issue.
SL73/116 made it’s racing debut in the ’68 Japan GP at the Fuji circuit in early May a month after it first arrived in Japan. Driven by Hasemi, the car failed to finish it’s first event. Hasemi drove the car in a further four races that year, the highlight being a win in the NET Speed Cup at Fuji.
For the 1969 Japanese racing season the car was rebuilt over the winter with much wider wheels with bigger stabilising front fins on the nose. At the rear, a strut mounted high rear aerofoil was fitted. Hasemi led the first race of the season but after a season of poor results the car was retired from active competition. When the Taki Racing Team was disbanded in 1970 the car was sold.
Purchased by Mr Murata of the Red Line Company, he sold the car to Mr Aono after the ’79 Suzuka Auto Show. He used the car on the road and by 1985 it had been resprayed dark blue and featured in the Japanese magazine “CAR”.
In 1993 Mr Aono sold the car to Mr Suzosyo where it was displayed in a private museum now resprayed red with a white arrow. In 2004 it was offered for sale with a huge price tag but remained unsold until bought by the current owner Mr Kouno Yoshikazu. He sent the car straight over to Mike McCluskey in America for a full ground up restoration and SL73/116 was returned to Japan in it’s original Taki Racing Team livery as worn in the ’68 Japan GP.
26/05/67: Tokyo Fujii Company Ltd, Chao-ku, Japan - completion date ready for delivery
• purchased on behalf of Taki Racing Team, Japan
• Fitted with Ryan & Falconer prepared 5457cc Chevrolet V8 engine no. RAF 15
• Departed from Liverpool Docks, England
• Arrived Yokohama Docks, Tokyo, Japan on April 1st 1968
• Cleared customs on April 3rd 1968
• Importation handled for Tokyo Fujii Company by Reshinguchimu, Tokyo
00/00/68: Taki Racing Team, Japan
• Raced 1968/69 in Japan by Masahiro Hasemi and Kenjirou Tanaka
• Displayed at the 1969 Tokyo Auto Show
• Retired from active competition in 1970
• Racing team disbanded in 1970
00/00/70: Mr Murata, Red Line Company, Japan
• Displayed at Suzuka Auto Show in 1979
00/00/79: Mr Aono, Japan
• Purchased after Suzuka Auto Show
• Road registered
• Resprayed blue in 1985
00/00/93: Mr Suzosyo, Japan
• Owned car for around 13 years
• In Japanese Museum in 2004 - resprayed red with white arrow
00/00/06: Mr Kouno Yoshikazu, Japan
• Sent to Mike McCluskey, USA for restoration
• Restored in 1968 Japan GP Team Taki livery
Taki Racing Team - Chevrolet 5.5 Litre V8
03/05/68 Japan GP, Mount Fuji #25 M.Hasemi Rtd
30/06/68 Auto Racing Suzuka, Japan #00 M.Hasemi Rtd
21/07/68 Fuji 1000 Kms, Japan #00 M.Hasemi/K.Tanaka 2nd
20/10/68 NET Speed Cup, Mount Fuji #27 M.Hasemi 1st
23/11/68 Japan Can-Am, Mount Fuji #270 M.Hasemi 11th
Rebuilt and upgraded with bigger wheels and rear mounted “high” wing
Painted plain red
12/01/69 Auto Racing, Suzuka #250 M.Hasemi
19/01/69 Suzuka 300 Kms, Japan #500 M.Hasemi Rtd
11/05/69 Fuji Speed Cup, Japan #000 K.Tanaka 7th
01/06/69 Suzuka 1000 Kms, Japan #00 M.Hasemi/K.Tanaka Rtd
27/07/69 Fuji 1000 Kms, Japan #00 M.Hasemi/K.Tanaka Rtd
08/10/69 NET Speed Cup, Mount Fuji #000 S.Nagamutsu Rtd
23/11/69 Japan Can-Am, Mount Fuji #000 S.Asoka 6th*
* borrowed and entered by Isuzu Motor Company
Retired from active competition
The shipping document exporting SL73/116 by sea from Liverpool Docks in England to Yokohama Docks in Tokyo, Japan, on the cargo ship the Perseus. The single document is for both cars, SL73/116 and SL73/130. Worthy of note are the two different values for the cars and the 40% excise duty on the purchase price. This high cost of importation was intended to simply discourage teams bringing in exotic European racing cars, like the T70, and instead encourage the use of domestically built Japanese cars.
Taro Taki Susumu, also known as Takishintaro but more commonly known as Shintaro Taki, the name he raced under, formed his own racing team in 1964 with a Lotus Elan 26R. To the Japanese, this was exotica with a racing pedigree to match, and given the high import and excise duties imposed on such exotica, a very expensive one. This expense though didn’t deter Taki for the following year he bought a new Porsche 906 and with it he scored a huge win beating all the factory teams in the Suzuka 12 Hours partnered by his young protégé Kenjirou Tanaka. The 906 was followed soon after by a 910. Taki had the money to keep the cars running for more than one season with each new car joining the stable rather than replacing one from the previous year. And so it was in 1968 when Taki bought the two red Lola T70 Mk3’s. He also purchased an ex-Mecom T70 Mk2 from Don Nichols, an American based in Tokyo. For the 1968 Japan GP, Taki entered five cars, the two Porsche’s and the three T70’s. Although the T70’s and the 906 all retired, Testu Ikuzawa finished 2nd in the 910 beaten only by a Nissan but finishing in front of four factory Nissans and three Toyota G7’s, all Can-Am spec cars. Taki continued racing his cars through to the end of 1969 by which time they were obsolete. He did though enter David Piper’s Porsche 917 in the ’69 Japan GP for Piper and Jo Siffert. In 1970 the team was disbanded but Taki remained involved with the sport for many years to come helping young drivers like he had done with Tanaka, Ikuzawa, Takahashi, Sakai and Hasemi, lead driver of SL73/116. Taki died in Nov ‘98 from natural causes aged 61 and at the time was advisor to the Japanese Automobile Federation (JAF), and the President of Japan Race Promotion who were instrumental in the development of Japanese motorsport and the Mount Fuji circuit for more than 30 years.
The 1968 Japan GP, the two Taki T70s pictured being tended to in the paddock at Fuji prior to both cars making their racing debut with SL73/116 to the fore. The two Lolas were part of a five car Taki Racing Team entry along with a T70 spider and the two Porsches. Masahiro Hasemi would drive SL73/116 and although he qualified well enough, this was really the first time that both cars had been properly run since being built the year before. They were in reality, one year old racing cars that had never turned a wheel. Despite neither car finishing the race, they had shown some serious pace and the team were confident of some good results for the year.
Very much at the instigation of Shintaro Taki, the Japanese Automobile Federation organised a big money Can-Am Group 7 race at Fuji to be held in late Nov ’68 and invited all the regular American teams to take part. The entry, quite frankly was a “who’s-who?” of American motor racing. All the big teams and their drivers had elected to take part.
Penske was there with Mark Donohue and the ’68 USRRC winning McLaren M6A and similarly mounted was Peter Revson in the Shelby American entry, who would win, while the rest of the American contingent was made up of such racing luminaries as Sam Posey, Jo Bonnier, Al Unser, Chuck Parsons, John Cannon, Jerry Titus, Pedro Rodriguez and George Follmer, all with the cars they had just finished the ’68 Can-Am season in.
After a hesitant start to the season with both the Team Taki T70 coupes, the cars had become much more sorted with Hasemi in SL73/116 finishing an excellent 2nd with Tanaka in the Fuji 1000 Kms. Driving on his own Hasemi then managed to win the next race also at Fuji, the NET Speed Cup. This was the second time a Lola T70 had won a race in Japan.
One could have reasonably expected more of the same in the Can-Am event but although sorted and reliable, there was no denying the car would be at a disadvantage in the Can-Am race against the much more powerful and bigger engined Group 7 cars. After a pit stop to fix a niggling problem, Hasemi finished 11th some laps down. As some consolation he finished 2nd in the prototype class to Sakai who finished 7th in the sister team car SL73/130. Hasemi is pictured above on the rolling pace lap alongside the McLaren M1C of John Cannon.
For the 1969 Japanese racing season the car was rebuilt over the winter with altered suspension and bodywork to accommodate wider wheels. Bigger stabilising front fins were also fitted on the nose and at the rear, a fashionable strut mounted high rear aerofoil. The rebuilt car was shown at the Tokyo Motor Show early in the new year.
Hasemi led the first race of the ’69 season, the Suzuka 300 Kms pictured below, and looked like heading for the win until the car broke down. By 1969 though the Mk3GT was essentially an obsolete design and SL73/116 soon became outclassed by more modern domestic Japanese built cars. After a season of poor results and mostly non-finishes SL73/116 was retired from active competition at the end of the year.
Masahiro Hasemi drove SL73/116 more than any other and raced the car in nine of the twelve races it was entered in over the 1968/69 Japanese racing seasons. He took back to back 2nd place finishes at Fuji in ’68. He also won another race at Fuji this time in the sister Team Taki car SL73/130 establishing himself as the most successful T70 driver in Japan. Very much a protégé, Hasemi started racing in 1960 in motorcross events aged only 14. At just 19 he was racing for the Nissan factory team in touring cars. By the time he drove for Team Taki in 1968 he was in his ninth consecutive season of domestic Japanese competition.
In his early years Hasemi rarely ventured outside Japan, but in 1973 Nissan entered a team of Datsun Sunny 1300 coupes in the Tourist Trophy at Silverstone. Hasemi though had really made a name for himself in the eyes of the British public a couple of weeks before with an incredible display of driving skills at the tiny Ingliston circuit in Scotland at the Royal Highland Showgrounds just outside Edinburgh. The team had entered the race at Ingliston as a warm-up before Silverstone, although quite why, no one could figure out at the time. The tight twisty confines of the circuit were nothing like the wide open spaces of Silverstone, in fact Ingliston makes the street circuit at Monaco look like an expressway. The facilities were rudimentary to say the least with the paddock housing the cars essentially being the cowsheds used to house livestock during the Royal Highland Show and monthly cattle markets. And there was no pit lane to speak off.
No one could also figure out why Frank Gardner in his Camaro had made the trip other than easy money and an enjoyable weekend in the city. It was no surprise to see him head the grid for the start of the 15 lap race with Hasemi someway towards the back in the little Datsun. At the drop of the flag it was raining like it only can in Scotland, and in those rain soaked laps Hasemi just motored through the field like he was in the dry. As Gardner struggled to cope with a useless amount of excessive power from the big Chevy V8, Hasemi started catching him and had caught right up going into the last lap. Frank just held on for the win just as Hasemi was shaping up to
pass.
Afterwards, through a translator, Hasemi softly explained that it also rains a lot at Fuji. Masahiro enjoyed a racing career that stretched all the way to 2001 when he finally hung up his helmet after 38 racing seasons. In that time he won the 1975 Japanese GP, the 1980 Japanese F2 title and was three times Japanese Touring Car Champion in ’89, ’91 & ’92. He also won the 1990 Japanese Sports Prototype title, but his biggest sports car win by far was the 1992 Daytona 24 Hours for Nissan. He currently heads up and is the President of Hasemi Motorsport.
SL73/116 pictured above in 1985 when owned by Mr Aono of Japan. This series of pictures and the ones below are from the Japanese monthly magazine “CAR”. Completely rebuilt since it’s Team Taki days and resprayed dark blue, gone are all the ’69 mods including the wider wheels, the altered suspension, the modified bodywork and the rear strut mounted high wing.
SL73/116 looking immaculate in it’s smart dark blue finish and standard bodywork without all the racing add ons from 1969. Mr Aono made the car street legal and registered for the road and for some years used the car for road trips although it never left Japan. By the time he sold the car in 1993 after some 14 years of ownership, the glue Lola had used to bond the panels to the chassis, and also act as waterproofing, had softened due to the continual road use.
After being resprayed red with a white arrow and on display in a private museum, the car was offered for sale. It was purchased in 2006 by Kouno Yoshikazu of Japan. Although complete and undamaged, the long years on display had seen rust starting to settle in several places. Kouno sent the car to Mike McCluskey in America for a ground up restoration.
The freshly restored and gleaming chassis of SL73/116 courtesy of the skills of Mike McCluskey. Pictured out in the sunshine at Mike McCluskeys in America fresh from restoration. The detailing and finish was done to a very high standard as befitting such an important racing car.
Pictured at home back in Japan, freshly restored in the racing livery of the Taki Racing Team as worn in 1968. SL73/116 now resides in the excellent and exalted company of several other historically important cars. The car though is not destined to sit unused as had happened to it before in it’s previous museum home. After more than 40 years, it is back on track.
