The watch that bears a piece of BRE’s SCCA championship-winning 240Z

By David S. Wallens
May 8, 2026

National win ads. The day’s top drivers. Factory race programs hoping to pull customers into the showrooms. SCCA road racing, specifically its C Production class, was a big thing for the 1970 season.

Triumph had its TR6, an updated take on an old favorite. Porsche banked on its 914-6, a car that could use some marketing muscle.

And Peter Brock brought Datsun to the party. The team planned to campaign something new and revolutionary that year: the 240Z.

First, though, a problem to overcome: a catastrophic harmonic vibration at high engine speeds. The 240Z, as prepared to the limit of the SCCA rules, would be a failure as its drivetrain simply tore itself apart. Calls to the mothership back in Japan went unanswered, so BRE continued to develop and campaign its older Datsun roadsters.

Finally, good news: Nissan engineers had quietly redesigned the 240Z’s crankshaft, allowing the engine to reach the necessary 8000 rpm.

The BRE team could now campaign its new 240Z. At the season-ending championship race, team driver John Morton won from the pole–and then won the big race again the following year. Nissan found a ton of customers for its new 240Z, while the other factory efforts left the class.

That original 240Z was destroyed, but Datsun enthusiast Randy Jaffe eventually found some of its parts and built the most accurate tribute out there. Part of the original exhaust started to split, though, so it’s been put to good use: The actual metal has been repurposed to make parts of REC’s new BRE46 watch. “I like the idea of having a piece of the original racer’s exhaust in this limited-volume watch,” Peter tells us. “Makes it far more personal for the serious collector who understands the car and its history.”


Photograph courtesy REC