John Cordts

John Cordts was born on July 23, 1935, in Hamburg, Germany. When he was two his family moved to Sweden, where his father dealt in farm equipment, mostly old tractors. Cordts and his elder brother spent much of their boyhood repairing them. By his own account, by eight or nine there was no tractor in the country he could not fix. He had a bicycle with a steering wheel instead of handlebars, owned his first motorbike at 12 or 13, and at 16 rode a Harley-Davidson with a foot clutch and hand shifter. He raced motorbikes on a small scale in Sweden.

No formal schooling or engineering training is recorded in public sources. Cordts described himself as self-taught on machinery, learning mechanics by rebuilding his father's tractors in Sweden. He learned racing the same way: ice racing an MGA on Lake Nipissing in the winter of 1956, then in club races at Green Acres and Harewood Acres in Ontario. He got his first racing licence with help from the southern Ontario MG racer Harry Haigh.

After emigrating to Canada in 1954 and settling in North Bay, Ontario, Cordts started racing on ice in a new MGA in 1956. He made his pavement debut at Green Acres the next summer, racing MGAs, an Austin-Healey 100-6 and an Elva Courier and winning more than 100 trophies. In 1965 he won the Canadian big-bore sports car championship in a Gorries' Chevrolet Corvette and was named CRCA Driver of the Year. Dave Billes then hired him for Performance Engineering, and his McLaren Elva cars won repeatedly at Harewood Acres. There in 1968 he set a lap record of about 101 mph that stood until the track closed in 1970.

He raced in the Can-Am series from its first Mosport round in 1966 until 1974, driving for Billes, Roger McCaig, Young American Racing, Smith-Oeser Racing and William Overhauser's W.O.R.L.D. Racing, mostly in McLarens and Lolas. He also listed Paul Newman's Can-Am Lola among his rides. His best Can-Am result was second at Road America on August 25, 1974, in a McLaren M8F. He started the 1969 Canadian Grand Prix in Paul Seitz's Brabham BT23B-Climax, qualifying 19th and retiring after ten laps with an oil leak. He also raced T/G Racing and B.F. Goodrich Pontiac Firebirds in the Trans-Am and at Daytona and Sebring, John Greenwood's Corvettes in 1972, and a Formula 5000 McLaren for Roger McCaig, finishing second at Road America. His last recorded race was the 1975 Road America Handicap in a U.S. Racing McLaren M8F.

According to Wikipedia, Cordts came to Canada with his wife Inga-Britt and their son Jimmy. Their children Mary and Johnny were born in Canada and later moved to Sweden with their mother. He was famously private. The Toronto Star's Frank Orr called him the only racing hermit driver he ever knew, and said Cordts had no phone at his home near Port Sydney, Muskoka, so messages went through the general store. He later moved to Vancouver Island and lived there in retirement. In an interview with John Wright he spoke of three children, six grandchildren and a partner 20 years his junior, whose name has not been made public.

Cordts said that moving to Canada was the best thing he ever did, and that he became a 100% Canadian the moment he stepped off the boat in Halifax. He disliked publicity and city life. He blamed SCCA officials for rule changes that, in his view, wrecked the Can-Am, which he called the best racing series North America had ever seen. He also said that if he could race again he would let no mechanical engineers touch his cars.

Cordts is remembered as one of the few Canadian professional road racers of the Can-Am era, and as a driver who could get results from under-funded cars. A Road & Track correspondent wrote: "If I had a Can-Am car, I would want John Cordts to drive it." His Harewood Acres lap record was never beaten before the circuit closed. He was one of five Canadians to start the Canadian Grand Prix in the 1960s, alongside Eppie Wietzes, George Eaton, Al Pease and Bill Brack. His autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Turnips, records his journey from a log cabin in the bush to Can-Am paddocks.

Canadian big-bore sports car champion, 1965. Canadian Race Communications Association Driver of the Year, 1965. Inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2003 (Competitor, Road Racing). In an interview he also said he was put into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame after finishing third in the United States Road Racing Championship with Dave Billes. Lap records at Harewood Acres and, by his own account, at Portage la Prairie, Westwood and Watkins Glen.

Cordts wrote an autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Turnips, a signed softcover distributed from North Bay by Peter Rodwell and reviewed by Sports Car Digest in May 2008. Sources date it to 2006 or 2007. A long interview with John Wright, recorded some 20 years earlier, was republished by Motoology Magazine in June 2025 as "A Quiet Driver of Anything: John Cordts". Period film of the T/G Racing Firebird team and of Can-Am races in which he took part is preserved on YouTube.

No public controversies are recorded. Cordts said that many mechanical failures, which he put at 90% not his fault, gave him an unfair reputation for being hard on cars.

John Cordts died on October 24, 2026, in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, aged 91, according to OldRacingCars.com. RaceHub Canada announced the death of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Famer on October 25, 2026, recalling his Can-Am and Trans-Am racing and his start in the 1969 Canadian Grand Prix. No cause of death or funeral details have been made public.