240Z / HISTORY: Datsun Switzerland & Jeff turner memorabilia
A while ago i got in contact with an super friendly elderly lady who used to own a Body- and Paint shop on the Premises of Datsun (Suisse) SA in Urdorf. The company was not related to DSSA, but they worked closely together. She handled warranty repairs for DSSA and worked on special cases for them. For example did she install the first 240Z spoilers and mirror after the cars arrived from Japan. She also got invited to some of their company events and therefore has loads of stories and memorabilia. We talk every now and then, and out of the blue i got a box in my mail yesterday. With this cool stuff:
She had shown me photos of these items before, but i never thought she would give them to me for free.. what a nice gesture!
The large “Brighten up” Poster was new to me, allthough i’ve seen the two comic faces before:
But on stickers with different slogans:
I really like the poster and will frame it and hang it in the garage.
The rest of the parts? Well here is where things get funny: Jeff turner, an Australian-Swiss country singer, who worked with the likes of Johny Cash, etc was sponsored by Datsun (later Nissan) Switzerland and they had him on many occasions like company festivities and so on.
She was a big fan and gave me her whole collection of his stuff including a nicely signed poster, some tour books:
You can clearly see he was sponsored by Nissan and he got free Nissan Patrols painted in his colours, w hich was quite famous in the 80ies:
They also used him for many promo gigs and presentation of new cars:
And even organized a “nissan Festival of Country music”:
The set also included a sticker with his Patrol and a Pin:
Fun side story: At a Nissan event, they raffled out a Nissan Micra, and the winner wanted it to be signed by Jeff turner, so the Lady prepared the hood for his signature, and clear coated it after he signed it. Here are some photos from her workshop during the ceremony:
Myrtha, if you read this i want to thank you from the bottom of my Heart for sharing the stories and your nice collection of Datsun / Nissan Switzerland History with me.