Video: John Morton Datsun 240Z Commercial

[Mike]

• Damn, he's a smooth character.

[TomoHawk]

Where was that commercial made- the racing part?

Edited April 21, 2013 by TomoHawk

[sblake01]

I've always heard that it was filmed at Laguna Seca. I don't know for use. If that is Laguna Seca, ironically he crashed a Scarab there a couple of years or so ago at the Monterey Historics. Not a Datsun V8 conversion but a 1958 Scarab roadster.

Edited April 21, 2013 by sblake01

[SteveJ]

It looked like Road Atlanta to me. I just noticed the uphill part going to the Suzuki bridge and the long front straight with the timing booth at the start of the straight.

John was at Road Atlanta for The Mitty in 2010 when Pete Brock was Grand Marshall. John raced in the Spec Miata race in a car painted in BRE colors.

[TomoHawk]

Don't forget that the commercial was made about 40 years ago, so the track that was used may have changed or even closed. It's even possible that the car(s) was not going the usual direction, because it looked better. Is there a map of the Laguna Seca track from about 1970?

Edited April 21, 2013 by TomoHawk

[TomoHawk]

An odd thing I noticed doing a little research, is that John Morton is listed as winning at Laguna Seca in 1972 with a Datsun 510 (the 240Z isn't mentioned at all in the article, though the commercial was probably filmed privately, with staged racing action.) At about the same time, (the current) turn 2 went to turn 5, with turns 3 and 4 being added about 1985.

Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edited April 21, 2013 by TomoHawk

[SteveJ]

Keep in mind that the SCCA runoffs were held at Road Atlanta in that timeframe.