Video: Adam Carolla and John Morton Test Drive the BRE1 Datsun 2000 Roadster

[Mike]

• CarCast's Adam Carolla and Sandy Ganz take Adam's recently restored Datsun 2000 Roadster to Willow Springs race track for a few laps with legendary racer John Morton.

[Carl Beck]

A friend of mine {Ruben Lopez}, said he had a friend that used to race Datsun Roadsters. Ken Baterson lives here in Clearwater, so I gave him a call one day. That was around the middle to end of 2001.

As Ken and I were talking, he mentioned that he had a friend that lived in the Orlando, Florida area - that also used to race Datsun Roadster's - and he had one of the BRE Roadsters - which happen to be for sale. So of course I had to follow through on that...

I called Ken's friend in Orlando {John Robertson}, and sure enough he said he had one of the BRE Roadsters, a second spare rolling roadster plus three of four engines, transmissions, wheels/tires etc. and a bunch of other stuff. It was ALL for sale - on a take it all or none basis. He estimated that everything would fit in an 18 wheeler..

I ask him about the history of the BRE roadster - and ask as many questions as I could - knowing very little about them myself.

Then I wrote Les for more info. Les supplied what info he could. After a few phone calls back and fourth between the owner and I - I called John Morton. I ask John if there was any unique items on the #44 roadster that might help identify it or eliminate others etc. John replied that the #44 roadster was equipped with a Watts Link on the rear suspension, which wasn't carried over to the #46 roadster. Sure enough the owner had previously described the car as having a Panhard Rod or Watts Link on the rear axle.

The owner would not sell just the roadster..even when offered the asking price for the entire lot.. He wanted it ALL GONE.. My garage and storage facility were already full. I called Ken back to see if he would take some of the spares.. NO. Les had his shop full at the time as well.. A few months passed and someone from South Florida bought the lot.. and as I understand it he and his father put the car back on the track for a few events. Then the hurricane went through South Florida in 2005 and they lost most of their racing parts, spares, cars etc.

Sometime after that Les contacted the owners in South Florida and picked the roadster up... It has had an Amazing restoration at Les's hands.

FWIW,

Carl B.

[Mike]

Very cool, Carl. Don't you wish you would have picked up all those parts back in 2001? I wonder how many parts were lost in the hurricane.