The 4-litre V6-engined double cab, which Kis will drive in selected rounds of the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup as well as the FIA International Cup for Cross Country Bajas, is the 14th racing version of Nissan’s Hardbody and Navara pickups to be built at Nissan’s motor sport workshop in Midrand.
“We built our first pickup designed specifically for off-road racing in 1999. It was a six-cylinder Hardbody which former national off-road champions Hannes Grobler and Richard Leeke raced in class T of the SA Off Road Championship,” said Nissan Motorsport general manager Glyn Hall.
“Since then we have built a further 13 racing pickups and we are presently busy building number 15 for a privateer team in the 2006 Absa Off Road Championship. Nine of these have been built for overseas customers – Nissan Dessoude, a prominent French dealer, and for Nissan Europe – and have contested the Dakar Rally since 2001 and some international cross country and Baja rallies.
“These vehicles, with different drivers over the years, have accumulated a number of top-10 finishes in the Dakar Rally, with South African Giniel de Villiers achieving the best results – fifth in 2003, seventh in 2004 and fourth in 2005. He also won the Morocco Rally, a round of the Cross Country Rally World Cup, in 2003. “One of our exported Hardbody pickups won the FIA International Cup for Cross Country Bajas in 2005.
“Our racing Proudly South African Hardbody pickups have won all five SA national championships for production vehicles since we decided to contest the national off-road championship following the demise of the SA touring car championship in 2000,” said Hall. “We have won 33 of the last 42 races and have won the driver, co-driver and manufacturer championships in each of the last five years.
“This year we are contesting the Absa Off Road Championship with two Proudly South African Nissan Navara pickups which have been specially built to comply with the new class SP (Super Production). Ford and Toyota are our main rivals in this new class and we expect a much closer-fought battle for overall supremacy this year than we experienced in the past,” said Hall.
After the first two rounds of the 2006 Absa Off Road Championship, Nissan leads the manufacturers’ championship from Toyota and Ford. Nissan’s former national champions Hannes Grobler and Francois Jordaan are tied on 44 points at the top of the championship standings with Ford’s former national champions Neil Woolridge and Kenny Skjoldhammer after each scored a win and a second place.
