Martin had a fascination for the late Peter Brock, owner of the BRE racing team, who pulverised all and sundry in the (USA) Trans Am series in the early 70's with his Datsun 510. (See Peter Brock and BRE for an article on the man he aspired toward.) Being an Internet BUM myself, I trawled the net for every conceivable photo I could lay my grubby paws on and any old bit of info I could pass on to him in order to keep him motivated in completing his desire. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!)
The original Peter Brock in action during a Trans Am race.
In the beginning of May 2007, on a cold and winters weekend (in Cape Town) with it bucketing down with rain, he started flatting the original bodywork, masking up windows, the engine bay (and strategic body parts) and slowly began the laborious makeover procedure. Being so cold and damp with the rain, the drying period (and temperature) was not playing game and in places the spray paint had already begun running. Slightly disheartened and irritated, the following day when it had sufficiently dried he began flatting the areas that had run (tear-dropped) and resprayed where necessary. The wheel rims were tediously masked up and the rim centres sprayed a gloss black, then had them sent away to have the outer rims polished to a high finish. (The exact procedure to get this part of the job done as well as the eloquent vocabulary used will not be published here) He even managed to (legally) obtain the exact race number being #46 as was originally raced by John Morton of BRE (Brock Racing Enterprises) and had that affixed in the exact same position as the original BRE 510 Datsun.
On the 12th May 2007 she rolled out onto the track as a total makeover. Compliments were bestowed throughout the day by fellow race competitors and race enthusiasts were there to pay compliments to their 'Datsun SSS' hero.
The 'makeover' and graphical guidelines from where precise detail was sought and implemented.
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