Pete Brock and BRE



Pete Brock has one of the most interesting tales to tell in the history of performance automobiles, one that has more twists and turns than Leguna Seca.

Pete was born November 15th, 1936 in New York, but moved to California with his mother after his parent's divorce in his first year. His father was New York Times war correspondent Ray Brock.

His first interest in automobiles came when he was just 11 years old and living in Sausilito California. Pete grew up in the same neighborhood that legendary race builders Bill Breeze and Nade Bourgeault had their shops in. While in high school in Menlo Park, Ca. Pete bought his first car, a MG-TC. This car was dropped in favor of a custom 46 Ford that Brock converted to take a Cadillac V8. Like many a car enthusiast, trying to figure out how to do this led him to look for the experts who knew how to do this kind of thing, a journey that led him to the customizers of LA.

Pete was inspired. After high school he went to Stanford, but couldn't focus on the tasks at hand there. Pete had cars on the brain. He left Stanford, headed back to LA and tried to enroll at the Art Center College, a place where many a car designer had honed his pen strokes. Pete had no portfolio of car drawings, so they initially rejected his application. Pete hurriedly went and got some paper and set about drawing a whole collection of hot rod sketches. He went back a day or so later and was accepted. Five semesters later, his family stopped paying his bills, and his tuition.

Pete needed a job fast. Fortunately Pete had caught the eye of Chuck Jordan, then assistant to Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell of GM. Brock called Jordan looking for a job, and got an invitation to come meet Bill Mitchell in Detroit. Brock, at the age of 19, was hired on the spot and went to work in GM's design studios.

Brock's time at GM was well spent, working on cars that would eventually become the Corvair, and the Corvette Stingray. If fact Brock says that he, and designer Chuck Poehlmann, did the vast majority of the work on the design of the Stingray, and that its based on his original design sketches of 1957. After two years, Brock left GM after losing interest in what they were doing. GM, at the time, was in their anti racing period, and performance cars were not really on their agenda. Brock went back to California, and got a job working for Old Yaller racer Max Balchowsky. One of Max's drivers at the time was a fellow by the name of Carroll Shelby.

Brock was into racing on his time too. He had bought a Le Mans Cooper racecar, and spent all his spare time rebuilding it. He began racing it at Palm Springs in the SCCA southern pacific division, then he bought a Mark II Lotus XI and finished second one season in that car. Pete drifted from job to job, until one day his path crossed with Carol Shelby again.


Shelby hired Brock in 1962 to run his new Performance driving school at Riverside raceway. Shelby had originally strike a deal with Paul O'Shea to form a partnership to run the school, but they couldn't decide who would be boss. So Brock got the job instead, and he and Shelby started the business out of Dean Moon's garage. To demonstrate how small the racing world is, Moon would later supply Chevy V8's for Nissan's R381 Japanese Grand Prix winning racecars.

Shelby was busy with his latest venture, the Goodyear racing tire franchise he had just acquired. Brock set to work on the racing school, designing everything from brochures to cars, and organizing and teaching racing, as well as running the tire distributorship. He was there when Shelby designed the original Cobras, and did the first testing on them at Riverside. Brock brought in two assistants to help him run the racing school, first was John Timanus, future technical director for the SCCA, the second was Bob Bondurant, the man who would take over the school and make it The Bondurant Performance Driving School, using Datsuns as his first training cars.

Brock, meanwhile was designing the Cobra Daytona Coupe, one of the most beautiful American racing cars ever, a car that would go on to win the US road racing championship and the World Manufacturers championship. At the same time as the Cobra was having success, Pete had gone to Italy to help design a car that would eventually become the Ghia De Tomaso.

Brock left Shelby in 1965 after the company came bogged down under the corporate influence of Ford. He then did a variety of jobs, including setting up his own enterprise Brock Racing Enterprises. BRE's first task was developing the Hino Contessa for Cal Club racing, in the days before B Sedan. Hino went on to build the Hino Samurai, a truly revolutionary car, but unfortunately an ill fated one. In 1967, the same year after Nissan took over Prince, Toyota was taking over Hino, reducing Hino to the heavy truck manufacturer it is today. Brock also designed a prototype for Triumph, the TR250 K.

Brock then developed a relationship with Toyota, designing the Toyota JP6 protoype, with help from Chassis designer Trevor Harris, and builder Bruce Burness. Brock was also contracted to develop Toyotas new 2000gt for the SCCA's 1968 D production season. The 2000gt featured a Yamaha built engine that Nissan had rejected earlier in its development. Around the same time as Brock was signing with Toyota, Carol Shelby lost his contract with Ford, and bought the distributorship rights for the entire East Coast from Toyota. As a perk in the deal, Shelby convinced Toyota to let him have the 2000gt for racing. Brock was out, and was he ever furious!

The best way to get back at Shelby and Toyota was to beat him on the track, and the best way to do that was with one of Toyotas archrival's cars. Brock approached Dick Roberts, then head of competition at Nissan USA, and asked for a couple of Datsun 2000 roadsters to race for that season. Roberts and Nissan USA execs turned him down, saying the roadster wasn't good enough for that type of competition, and that they wouldn't risk embarrassing the company. Brock countered that he could make a winning car out of anything, even the 2000 roadster. Nissan USA sill said no.

Brock called an old friend at Hino back in Japan. That friend then called the Chairman of Nissan and convinced him that Brock was worth the chance. Nissan Japan agreed to Brocks request and sent him 2 roadsters.



The Datsun Years



John Mortons 46 roadster, Pete Brock is standing in the middle w/ scarf photo courtesy Julian Serles- see his Su tech pages here.

Brock got the cars and cash, and sets about building a racing team with the new 2000 roadsters. Art Ohleri built the engines, Trevor Harris looked after the extensive chassis modifications, and Frank Monise and Pete's old friend from Shelby, John Morton looked after the driving duties. It was the right combination of people at the right time in the right place. Monise, Morton and the BRE team won the 1968 SCCA Pacific Coast D Prod title.

toy of Mortons C production winning BRE 240z


Support for the team was handed over to Nissan USA, much to the dislike of Dick Roberts, who had no love for Pete Brock after Brock had gone over his head to get the original roadsters. This is when another ingredient in the BRE Datsun success story was added, Nissan USA President Yutaka Katayama, or Mr. K.

Mr. K loved racing, he had done it ever since he was a youngster in Japan. He was even the founder of the Japanese version of the SCCA, the Sports Car Club of Japan. If you wanted to race, Mr. K was the guy you wanted at your back. Brock and Katayama began a mutual respect society. Brock didn't race for Nissan, he raced for Mr. K.

Monise and Morton took the 1969 SCCA D prod title again for BRE. Mr. K was ecstatic. Datsuns were winning on both coasts now, with Bob Sharp doing his duty on the East Coast.

Mortons BRE Z

Mr. K new what was coming for 1970, the 240z, and He and Brock wanted to be ready for it. The 240z Wasn't going to arrive in time for the new season, so John Morton and the BRE roadster were entered in the 1970 C production series, as a way of maintaining Datsuns position in the class the new 240z would compete in. Morton was now going head to head with Porsche 914's and Triumph TR6's, all in an attempt to accumulate enough points to qualify for the SCCA runoffs, where BRE would switch to the new 240z.

Morton won the race and the 240Z had its first victory. The roadster did all the hard work, and rightfully is the car that probably should've earned the 1970 title. But it was a grand start for the 240z, a win that would launch a ten year dynasty for the Z car in SCCA C production.

McComb, Bob Sharp, and Morton



The Z was back for 1971 and won the C production for John Morton and BRE, with Dan Parkinson driving a second BRE team Z. The run-off line up had Morton, Parkinson, and Bob Sharp lined up side by side on the front row. The 1971 season saw constant improvement in the 240z's, an improvement that would start to show the weaknesses in the other cars in the field. The more the Z's pushed, the more the Triumphs and Porsches broke.

After winning two consecutive titles, BRE left C production and the 240z to Bob Sharp, and moved to the SCCA's new Trans Am 2.5 series(see separate history) in a very successful attempt to improve the market for Datsun sedans. The demand for the 240z was so high by then that there was no way to justify throwing racing money at a car that had a 6-month waiting list for buyers.

Petes personal 510

BRE's knowledge and expertise were thrown into the development of the Datsun 510, which Morton took to two successive Trans Am titles, a series of wins that was so devastating, it actually killed the series.

BRE would enter a Formula Ford in a couple of Continental series events, before Morton crashed in spectacular style in the rain at Watkins Glen. BRE also entered Datsun BRE 510's and a Nissan "works" 240Z in the Baja off road race in '72 and 73 with unfavorable results. Brock had had a bit of an obsession with the Baja and had put entries into it before.



BRE entries for the '73 Baja


Pete Brock disbanded BRE in early 1973 after Nissan pulled out of the Trans Am series. Nissan gave the contract to race sedans to Don Devendorf and ex BRE employee John Knepp, who would go on to make a champion of the B210 with their Electromotive racing team.


Recently discovered BRE Trans Am spec car, the third of only 3 known to exist

In the end, Brock Racing Enterprises most likely imploded from its own success and the ambition of its teammates. Morton wanted bigger faster cars, the engine builders Floyd Link, John Caldwell and Art Ohleri all went off to bigger successes. Trevor Harris, BRE's chassis designer, is still considered one of the best race car designers of the last 40 years.

Pete would go on to design hang gliders and ultralight Aircraft, making innovations in that field for the next dozen or so years. He continues to dabble in the experimental aspects of the automotive world. He now lives in the Seattle area, working as freelance writer for magazines, and with his wife, as an acclaimed racing photographer.

Is there more I should know?