Return of the 1970 BRE Datsun 240Z

Filed under: 240z,Automotive History,Events,Racing
by Alvin G @ 2:40 pm on November 22, 2022

In November 2019, racing legend John Morton and co-driver Rob Fuller piloted the #46 BRE Datsun 240z in the HSR Classic 24hr race at Daytona International Speedway. The team was heading for a class win until the second session when a Chevron panicked and cut hard right in front of John Morton, causing the Z to flip up in the air landing on its roof.

Team manager and owner Randy Jaffe sent the Z back to Z Car Garage for repairs and improvements and it is now back on the road in fighting form. Enjoy our report with photos and video chronicling the rebuild from dyno tuning to applying the famous livery on the BRE Datsun 240Z.

Racing at Daytona

The Classic 24 race featured six race groups with 4 (1hr) sessions and cumulative time deciding the winner. Each session had a 3-minute pitstop with mandatory driver exit during fueling. It was an incredible sight to see the #46Z out on the high banking with serious race cars like the Smith Motorworks 1980 Porsche 935 K3:

Despite heavy rain the team carried on, making changes to the car and improving with each session:

Randy: “As you drive into the infield at Daytona and look at that 31% banking it’s super intimidating and as Rob stated you cannot look straight out of the car as it’s always bending left and he has never experienced that before. Rob did an amazing job of adapting to not only the car but to the track within a few laps as he cut down six seconds. John Morton has not run Daytona in over 20 years and he got right in the car and turned a great time which is what professional race drivers do! At 77 years old it’s just amazing how he is so calm and so smooth around these tracks!”

The bad weather and lack of track experience didn’t hold the team back. Rob was ecstatic not only about the Z’s performance, but also being able to co-drive with his hero:

Rob: “Ben from Retrosport with Alan Terpins’ 1979 Porsche 935 MOMO car kicked ass and won their class. They were clocked on the front straight under braking at 188mph. The BRE Z did 156mph top speed and our lap times (Morton and Fuller) were within a .1 of each other. I can’t describe the feeling of going from total fanboy to being a co-driver with John Morton. All of this comes from Randy Jaffe’s generosity, drive/passion to celebrate this car and era. These heroes that were making history and didn’t even know it 50 years later. Watching people from all over the world find John Morton to have him sign something, shake his hand, tell him a Datsun story. It’s surreal.”

Unfortunately our hopes of a first or second place finish in class were cut short at the second session. John Morton got an epic start and as they all went into turn 1 on the first lap (at night) a Lola T 70 lost its grip, then a Chevron panicked and cut hard right in front of John. There was nothing he could do and the car was so low that it flipped us up in the air and onto the roof:

John Morton was able to exit the Z safely, without any injuries. The Z was towed in, covered and our race ended. We all had hashbrowns and coffee late night at Waffle House:

Randy: “Of course all of us were freaked out wondering if JM is OK and Sylvia was a cool as a cucumber. When he returned to the paddock from the care center we were all gasping as we were not aware of his status! Racing icons such as Jochen Maas, Ray Everham, Bob Leitzsinger came over to check on JM as we covered the car. The roof was caved in like a V and almost down on the dash. Body panels were a mess, a broken control arm, sail panels were wrinkled, front rad support bent and various other pieces destroyed on the front end… all of us went to lunch the next day on Daytona Beach and I ordered upside down dessert for Morton and we all had a lot of laughs knowing he was OK. He relived his racing career at the table and it was either #6 or 7 for flipping cars and 1 airplane event!!”

You can see video with in-car footage of both John Morton and Rob Fuller and the crash in our 2019 report HERE. Enjoy the triple-Mikuni carb’d music and wild banking of Daytona!

The BRE 240Z Rebuilt at Z Car Garage

The #46Z was shipped from Georgia back to ZCG for a rebuild after damages from the Daytona crash. We know that owner Randy Jaffe goes to 11, and this was his chance to correct every little detail on BRE car as it was raced in 1970. Our goal: make this Z absolutely perfect. Let’s dive into the restoration.

Bodywork

Bodywork and paint was handled by our man William from William’s Auto Body. We provided OEM parts from our stash like the hood, fenders and new Euro front bumper. Everyone wanted to see this the Z revived and even Nissan donated parts including original headlight covers, BRE spoiler and fiberglass headlight buckets for a Series 1 car.

Randy: “There was never a doubt in my mind to repair it with Rob’s guy William. Over the next 2 years every inch of the car was worked on including cleaning up a few OCD details on stripe positioning, size and scale of the JM on the doors along with using single stage paint like it was painted back in the day by Dave Kent – the master! The thought that JM and Rob were running the car at 157 mph with ONLY the original 46 Z roll bar that JM himself had welding in VIN 00492 was a bit scary after the fact! The car protected JM and made us proud of how the Z chassis held up!”

We obsessed over the paint and livery: the shade of red is not the same between the BRE Datsun 510 and Z cars! There was a heavy focus on the “Datsun” script, its location and kerning on John Morton’s name on the doors. The BRE livery was applied by The Real Ralph Newman. You can see his hand-painting details in the time-lapse video below. Ralph nailed it.

Chassis

With the bodywork, paint and livery sorted we started re-assembling the chassis. Freshly plated parts and hydraulic lines were installed:

Suspension

Suspension parts original to the 1970 BRE 240Z chassis that John Morton raced were re-installed.

Drivetrain

The engine was refreshed while it was out along with the supporting drivetrain components. The Z was going to be aesthetically and mechanically ready to race again. The original, multi-piece heat shield was re-plated:

Like many race cars, the Z got a set of our Z Car Garage CV Axles (set #00240):

The BRE Datsun 240Z in Back!

Enjoy this video showing a walk-around, dyno tuning, warm-up and more!

Details

Full weatherstripping including hatch and door seals were installed and even the small door/window pieces can be seen in the photo gallery below:

We excel at the small details and accept challenging ones like re-creating period items:

Randy:“Rob, Josh and Nick were just unbelievable – all 3 went to the ends of the earth to take their time to makes sure all of the crazy details were secured. The original 46 Z had Interpart quick release hood pins at the from hinges and the Z Car gang fabricated them to the T!! Morton just saw the car 2 weeks ago for the first time and forgot about them and said ‘those were EXACTLY what was on there’!”

The interior going back in the car:

Enjoying The Ride

After finishing the restoration of the BRE Datsun 240Z at Z Car Garage we shipped it back back to Randy in Georgia for him to enjoy. He wasted no time:

“So the car arrives back in Atlanta in Feb 2022 after 26 months of being in CA just in time to take it and the 46 510 to the Daytona Hall of Fame Induction with Peter Brock. Entering into the arena including Jack Roush, Helio Castroneves, Harley & Davidson and a handful of other racing icons. We staged the cars in front of the first Monday night dinner and Peter had a smile from ear to ear. We then displayed the 510 in front of the hotel where the other events took place. The juice was worth the squeeze!”

In June, Randy attended the Highlands Motor Festival in North Carolina. Both John Morton and Sylvia Wilkinson were there to enjoy the event as well.

Randy: “So my mind starting spinning as I thought this was a chance to get JM back into the car for at least a shake down session! I called a friend of mine Matt Crouch who has been a member of AMP – Atlanta Motorsport Park in Dawsonville, GA (property was sold to them by Bill Elliott) since it’s inception 10 years ago and asked him if he thought we could get on the track with no other cars the day or so before we left to go the event in NC. Track owner Jeremy gave us the track from 3-4pm by ourselves with corner workers, etc on the house! Jeremy and his crew were ecstatic to have a racing icon drive on their track! “

The car ran perfectly and John Morton was back in the car at speed at 80 years old!

Randy: “I gave my three friends 3 laps each in the right seat and they all were dazed with excitement It was a great day, great car, great shop to make it that way and great times!!! The Z was a huge hit at the event in NC – had it’s own parking area and JM & Sylvia sold books and signed autographs all day!”

Thank You!

We are grateful to Randy Jaffe for giving the opportunity to be part of this journey. It has been a wild ride and we admire Randy’s passion to share the stories of John Morton.

Randy and the BRE 240Z Build

While many have seen the BRE 240z at racing events and shows, there is a great story behind this car as told by owner Randy Jaffe:

“I met John somewhere around 2012 and told him I was going to build a tribute to his championship 240 Z car and I’m sure he’s heard that hundreds of times and he was kind of bored with the conversation. Then I started sending him and Peter Brock emails to build it correctly then after I spent several years at an attempt to do a tribute I was with both of them one night and asked about the real story on the remains of the original car. Both of them looked at each other and back at me and I was like – what was that look for? They went on to tell me that the story I had heard for years about the car being totally destroyed and no longer around was not true. Dan Parkinson who lived about a hour and a half north of Los Angeles had the remains of the car that he had re-bodied after a 1977 ball joint failure at phoenix motor Speedway. Casey Mollett – another Datsun racer back in the day was a few hundred yards behind Dan Parkinson when he hit that wall and he was part of the teardown and reassembly to the 1977 to 80 Z that Nissan gave Dan to rebuild a car. They were going to repair the original 46Z which now wore the number five livery of Dan Parkinson but the painter said it would take a month and a half to two months and they had to race in a few weeks so they use the 1977 280 Z that Nissan gave Dan.”

“The long and short of it is that they raced the 1977 shell for a few years and retired the car and racing in 1979 and all of those parts just sat there until 2016. Dan and I have had conversations for over a year and many many people were trying to buy these parts because they knew what they were but for some reason he felt comfortable and asked me one day do I really want all the stuff and of course I said yes. John Morton actually said since he owned the original chassis plate which he had taken off the car when he installed the remote Traco oil filter back in 1970 he kept that Vin plate in his toolbox until he gave it to me at the Petersen Museum in 2016. I had already completed my car as a tribute to the BRE team and John Morton when Dan sold me all of the surviving pieces. I then ripped the entire car apart and installing every little piece I could that had integrity and that’s when Rob Fuller stepped in to finish the car build like it was back in the day.”

Pictures from the race prep of Randy’s Z at Z Car Garage:

A sampling of the original parts is shown below including the exhaust header with megaphones, SW gauges, and BRE remote oil filter/cooler. Original BRE heat shield and fuel block pictured above. All assembled by the crew at ZCG prior to testing:

Randy’s fanatic attention to detail and our team’s prep culminated in John Morton enjoying the Z at several race events:

“So many of the remaining pieces along with the 1971 championship motor is on display at my shop. After going to a few shows with John Morton in the car I told him I wanted to race it and he kind of smirked and said it’s a show car not a race car and my reply was we’re gonna race it will you drive it and he Sylvia was nonchalant and said yeah maybe… when we signed up and got into the first Rolex reunion in 2017 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion.”

“John wasn’t really excited about racing the car Rob and I could see that even when he got belted in the car. When he came back after 6 to 8 laps a different man had returned he immediately walked over to Sylvia and said what are my times – He knew he was turning really fast laps and was getting really fired up! He told Brock down at the Carmel car show that the show car was truly a fast racecar! That weekend he terrorized all kinds of Porsches including 935s and was running up front in the top 10 out of a group of 40 to 50 cars. This became really fun so we’ve done it now at Road Atlanta Laguna Seca and now Daytona!”

Big thanks to Randy Jaffe, Sylvia and John Morton, the ZCG team Josh and Keith Corwin, Meghan Fuller, Michael Eberhardt and Vintage Racing Company and HSR this was a memorable event we can’t wait to come back to next year. More pictures in the gallery below:

LONG LIVE THE Z!