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A Winning History with John Morton

Before the 787B – John Morton Wins at Le Mans with a 13B Lola in 1984
When you take a detailed look at his career, John Morton has to be counted as one of the most versatile drivers in racing history. With rides ranging from 427 Cobras to Can-Am, Formula 5000, Indy cars and IMSA GTP, Morton had a career most pro racers only dream about. That career included competing at Le Mans nine times, driving Ferraris and Porsches and the Mazda-powered Lola 616 prototype. It was in that Mazda-powered car that Morton had his first great success at the famed 24-hour road race.
Morton tells the story like this: “My favorite connection driving with Mazda was at Le Mans in 1984,” he says. “I hadn’t been on the BFGoodrich Busby team, but Rick Knoop was one of the drivers and Busby was looking to fill the roster for a two-car team at Le Mans. I got the ride! In the car I drove, one of the other drivers was a Mazda factory driver named Yoshimi Katayama and the third was John O’Steen.”
Mazda had won the C Junior class the year before with an in-house 717C prototype, so the rotary engine had already proven its durability and power. With confidence in the team and in the car, Morton made the trip to France for the race.
“We flew over on the Concorde, because they didn’t want us to be tired,” he recalls. “The car was a Lola 616 prototype with a 13B two-rotor engine. It was a Mazda factory effort along with BFGoodrich. They had two classes for prototypes back then, called C1 and C2. The only thing that really differentiated the classes was the fuel allotment, and if you used it all up, you were done! We were in C2, so we ran smaller cars and we had to drive relatively conservatively because our cars were not very fuel efficient.”
Driving to win while keeping an eye on the gas gauge wasn’t easy, and required that much more effort in the corners.
“At the time, the Mulsanne straight was three and a half miles long,” Morton relates. “We had a fuel flow meter in the car, and we’d get up to about 175 miles an hour, and then we’d back off a bit to conserve fuel. As the race wore on, we did well. We were front-runners, but not winning all the time. There was another car with an Italian engine called a Giannini, and we’d be leading and then they’d be leading. We were close. They were a little faster because they didn’t have the fuel conservation problem, but they broke shortly before the end and we won our class.”
Winning your class at Le Mans is no small achievement, and Morton recalls the scene at victory circle.
“The last driver in our car was Katayama, and we were thrilled,” he says. “To win the class was a big deal. The crowd dumps over the wall and you’re in a massive crowd of people. Katayama was up on the podium with a big wreath around his neck, and we were just wondering how you got up there! We never did get up there.”
Both Morton and Mazda went on to win again at Le Mans in future years, including Mazda’s legendary overall win in 1991 with the four-rotor 787B prototype. Morton went on to race three-rotor and four-rotor RX-7s in IMSA at both Sebring and Daytona – but that’s a story for another time….
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Years later When a different Katayama was introducing Datsun/Nissan to the USA,

John Morton was one of the three drivers. Datsun 510's won the Transam

Championship under 2 liters for 3 years.....and when I bought mine

it was the only car that I bought without taking a test drive.
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I bought it from Bobby Clark's Clearwater Datsun on US19. Bobby Clark raced

in SCCA B Sedan. I did some things the competition manual said to do and that 510

Datsun was the winning-est car I ever drove.

I won 5 state Autocross Championships with that car.

SCCA's Randy Pobst (now "famous" lol ) ran an oversize, cheating S.O.B. VW in

Melbourne for the 5th championship.
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My last race was on the one mile paved motorcycle road course at Dade City.

my 1600CC 4 banger lost to a 240Z with 2400CCs by ONE THOUSANDTH OF A

SECOND! I was airing up one tire before my final run when the valve stem fell

out in my hand.........I took that as a psychic message from God, that it was time

to quit racing cars. 3 years later I beat the Hobie Cat World Champion at

the Mid-Winters in Clearwater Beach Florida.
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I still have my car in my garage......and my sailboat in my back yard.

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The article below.....brought back some memories.

Picture at the end may take a few moments to download.
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In the final race for the championship, Horst Kwech driving an Alfa Romero, was in 2nd place behind John Morton
on the last lap, going into the corkscrew at laguna Seca. Kwech booted the Datsun in the butt and knocked him off
course to take the win.


During the inspection following the race, officials found the Alfa Romero had an illegal, oversize gas tank
and that was why the Alfa had skipped a pit stop.......without making a pit stop, those cars were nose to tail......
and that speaks well for John Morton's driving ability.
Horst Kewch had already escaped from the track with the trophy. John Morton won the championship anyway.
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50 years later during a demonstration run at a vintage car race at the same track, using the totally restored original cars, the
Alfa was in the lead this time.


John Morton drove into the back of the Alfa Romeo in the same last turn, with his foot on the gas,
and put the Alfa into the weeds.
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At first I felt a little bad about such a historic, fully restored Datsun 510 being crash damaged.
Then I realized that the Nissan/Datsun company had plenty of Japanese craftsmen who probably
were standing in line to work on such a famous car.


And If I were John Morton, and knowing there was an army of Japanese craftsmen fully capable
of making the car like new again, I would have pushed that Alfa into the weeds with my foot on the floor,
just like John Morton did.


My 510 Datsun was not painted like this, but I won 5 Florida State Autocross Championships.
-Bob

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The Most Famous Datsun Of All Time?

CAR SPOTLIGHT
By

Mike Garrett

29th September 2016 18 Comments

Today, Datsuns from the early 1970s are some of the most popular cars out there for restoration and modification. And despite the fact that the Datsun name hasn’t been used in the United States since the 1980s, it’s a nameplate that’s revered by many gearheads.

But it wasn’t always this way.



Like the other Japanese automakers that entered the US market, Datsun had an uphill battle to win over the hearts and minds of the American motoring public. For the budget-minded buyer, big selling points for early Datsuns were their compact size and fuel economy, but winning over driving enthusiasts and race fans would be a more difficult task.

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The vehicle you see here is not only of one the machines that helped Datsun do exactly that, but it’s also one of the most recognizable Datsun-badged cars of all time.

You’re looking at the 1971 and 1972 SCCA Trans Am 2.5 championship-winning BRE 510 built by Peter Brock and driven by John Morton.



This is the real deal, the actual #46 car originally built by Brock Racing Enterprises, and it’s currently part of Nissan USA’s corporate collection.

As part of its display at JCCS this year, Nissan brought the BRE 510 all the way from its headquarters in Tennessee to display in Long Beach.

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The 510 is presented exactly how it was raced back in 1971; the original livery, 13-inch Libre wheels and everything else all remain true to the period. Seeing the actual car at JCCS this year was a real treat.



With a hopped-up 2.0-liter under the hood, Morton’s 510 made about 190 horsepower, and it diced it up with the Alfa Romeos and BMWs all season.



After a drama-filled battle against the Alfa Romeos across the US, it all came down to the season finale at Laguna Seca where the little 510 put itself in the record books of American motorsport and helped establish Datsun as a brand not just for commuters, but for driving enthusiasts as well.



Let’s finish this off with Against All Odds, the period film that documents Morton and this very car during the triumphant 1971 Trans Am season. Apologies in advance for the 26 minutes of work that you won’t get done while watching this video.

Mike Garrett
Instagram: japanifornia
mike@speedhunters.com

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Against All Odds Nissan Datsun 1600 / 510 BRE Racing

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datto510
Published on Jan 9, 2011







Against All Odds Nissan Datsun 1600 / 510 BRE Racing John Morton, Mike Downs, Peter Brock and Kwech in the Alfa. Datsun verse Fiat, Volvo, Alfa Romeo, BMW. Sports car club of America 2.5 Trans America challenge.

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Datsun510zen

The 510 was designed specifically around the highest power to weight ratio possible. In race trim the BRE 510s were 185hp and 1700lbs 9.2lbs per hp. Seeing lightness as a mark of poor quality is a fools miss-perspective, because it's totally missing what makes this car perform the way it does. Hot Rodders have known for decades, the lighter it is the faster it goes. It also has close to perfect 50/50 weight distribution, a very low center of gravity, and a semi trailing arm independent rear suspension.





This allowed it to accelerate out of corners much earlier than the Alfa and the BMW. Set up right, once you hit the apex of a corner, you can hit the gas, let go of the steering wheel and the 510 will launch out of a corner like it's found a new gear. In tight corners you can see the Alfa's inside rear tire lifts 4" off the ground. On three wheels, you have to wait until you're out of the corner to begin accelerating hard. By then the 510 has pulled ahead and you are playing catchup from one corner to the next.





The advantages of a smaller 1.6L vs the 2.0L combined with the lighter over all weight, and lower center of gravity meant better fuel milage, better handling, faster acceleration, and higher revving 9K+ rpm giving it a broader power range that evened out any top speed advantage of a bigger 2.0L motor.

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Vintage Datsun BRE 510 Race Car Driven

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Car And Driver





Published on Oct 2, 2012






IndyCar driver Alex Lloyd gets behind the wheel of his first vintage race car, the Datsun 510 BRE.

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Mark Aul

my father had 1 of these during the gas shortage of the 1970's I think not sure but i remeber it well it was a 1968 510 and it was a ugly little car and it need a paint job my Father bought 1 case of rust kill spray paint from Ace Hardware Store and painted it flat black I learned to drive stick shift with this car itr was a 4 cylinder with a 4 speed cool little car back in 1981 my Father sold it real cheap to a Nieghbor Lady who desparetly needed a car it was a play thing for us but to her it saved her and her family !