John Morton
John Morton has been a fixture in American sports car racing for more than 60 years. During his career he shared the track with racing legends including Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Jim Hall, David Hobbs, James Hunt, Jacky Ickx, Ken Miles, Roger Penske, Bobby Rahal, Brian Redman, Keke Rosberg, Johnny Rutherford, Patrick Tambay, and Al Unser.
In 1962, a 20-year-old John Morton drove his Jaguar XK150 coupe from Waukegan, Illinois to Riverside, California to attend Carroll Shelby’s driving school at Riverside International Raceway. He subsequently landed a job at Shelby’s manufacturing facility in Venice, California when they were just getting started on their now legendary place in motorsports history. While working at Shelby’s he bought a Lotus Super 7 to begin racing in amateur events. John drove his first professional race in 1964 with Ken Miles at Sebring in a prototype 427 Cobra and later drove a team Cobra with Miles and Skip Scott to win their class at the Road America 500. John then traded the Super 7 for a Lotus 23B powered by a twin cam Ford/Lotus engine which was painted the team’s Viking Blue color, and transported and entered with Cobras as a Shelby team entrant in USRRC races.
In 1969, John joined Peter Brock’s BRE racing team and started driving the team’s new Datsun 2000 Roadster. This was followed by the team’s first national championship in the new Datsun 240Z. The team dominated the SCCA C Production class with a second national championship in 1971, while the team’s Datsun 510 won the 2.5 Trans-Am championship in 1971 and 1972 carrying his trademark No. 46.
John subsequently drove in Formula 5000, CART, and the SCCA Can-Am series. In 1979, John teamed with Tony Adamowicz at the 1979 Rolex 24 at Daytona in a Ferrari 365 GTB/4, scoring a stunning second overall and first in the IMSA GTO class.
In 1981, Phil Conte joined John’s small Can-Am team as a sponsor for two years after which Phil formed his own IMSA team with John as one of his two drivers in the GTP category.
In 1985, John was on the BF Goodrich Porsche 962 team with Pete Halsmer where they won the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix at Riverside in 1985.
In 1987 John drove for Bob Tullius’ IMSA Camel GTP Group 44 Jaguar team and won the last Los Angeles Times GP at Riverside and the West Palm Beach Grand Prix. He then joined Electramotive’s Nissan GTP racing team driving with Geoff Brabham and Elliott Forbes-Robinson, dominating the series in 1988.
The Cunningham Racing Nissan 300ZX team hired John to drive at the 12 Hours of Sebring with Johnny O’Connell and Steve Millen, scoring class wins in 1993 and 1995, and first overall in 1994.
Starting in the late 90s John raced in both the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series and American Le Mans Series, with his last professional race in 2002 at Circuit Mont-Tremblant in a Porsche 996.
Additionally, John has raced at Le Mans nine times; the first was in 1979 driving the Interscope Racing Porsche 935, which was followed by eight more trips and included a 1984 class win in a Lola T616 HU2/Mazda, a 3rd overall in 1986 in the Joest Racing Porsche 956, and another class win in 1994 driving the Cunningham Racing Nissan 300ZX.
In 2010, John was inducted into the Sebring Hall of Fame and is part of the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America’s 2026 Induction Class.
The material presented in this website is a chronological arrangement of John Morton’s personal scrapbooks and various photos/articles sent to him over the years. Some commentary and quotes are provided as well.
