Nissan R391

The Nissan R391 is a prototype racing car built by Nissan and their motorsports counterpart Nismo for competition at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was a replacement for the R390 GT1, which was no longer legal in its production-based class.

History

Following Nissan's return to sportscar racing in 1995, motorosports division Nismo had been slowly climbing its way up the competition ladder to finally reach the top Le Mans prototype class. Starting with Skyline GT-R LMs in 1995, Nismo turned to developing the advanced R390 GT1 in 1997, which was effectively as close to a prototype as possible while still remaining street legal.

With major rule changes in the GT in 1999, major manufacturers were no longer able to build homologation specials which resembled prototypes more than true GT cars. Thus Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Panoz, BMW, and Audi turned to the prototypes class, either using open cockpit prototypes or closed cockpit cars which were actually evolutions of their former GT cars. Nissan, believing that a purpose built prototype would be superior to an evolved GT car, decided to go the route of an open cockpit.