A little later, he adds his impression on first seeing Newman's name painted on the name of his race car in 1967: "Why would Cool Hand Luke want his name on what was probably the worst Can Am car ever designed?" That pretty much sums it up; Paul Newman came to racing somewhat late in life, but he was a racer. We get the entire story of Paul Newman's racing career, from the first time he took his Porsche-engined '53 Beetle out onto the Willow Springs racetrack, through catching the racing bug for real while filming "Winning," and on through his evolution from weekend Datsun 510 racer into Trans Am winner and team owner. Motor Trend executive editor Matt Stone and co-authors Preston Lerner and Mario Andretti interviewed a broad swath of Newman's instructors, competitors, and team members, and the reader comes away with a good sense of the kind of racer he was. According to Bob Sharp:

His first year was a struggle. He wasn't naturally fast. But he had a sensitive touch and was very easy on equipment. Even in the beginning, when he wasn't the fastest guy out there, he was always clean and disciplined. Never was he off the track. He improved very logically, systematically, and as he got more and more races under his belt, he got better and better and better. It was unbelievable. He became a very, very good professional driver.

Newman moved up to faster and faster cars, racing a Porsche 935 in the 1979 24 Hours Of Le Mans and winning his first Trans Am race in 1982. After that, he moved into CART team ownership and yet more racing. Though his acting gig occasionally got in the way of his real profession and his philanthropic ventures grew in importance, he more or less lived racing until his death at the age of 83 in 2008. Reading this book, you'll get all the twists and turns of this story, and Stone's hagiographic tone may be forgiven when referring a man who, by all accounts, really was the all-around good guy he appeared to be.

As a nice bonus at the end, we get a chapter devoted to Newman's street cars over the years. Not only was there the Porsche Super 90-powered '53 Beetle in the early days; Newman decided that wasn't enough, so in 1969 he commissioned a Ford 351-powered Beetle. In the 1980s and 1990s, Newman drove some hot engine-swapped Volvo wagons. How about an '88 740GLE with a 400-horse turbo Buick V6? Or a supercharged Ford small-block in a '96 Volvo 960 wagon?

This one gets a four-rod rating. Murilee says check it out!

[Motorbooks]

According to LeMons Assistant Perpetrator Nick Pon, the Peugeot 504 sputtered to a halt and had to be pushed off the track two laps into transponder testing (which takes place at about 30 MPH, so you know that the weekend will be full of excitement for the Peugeot team if they can get the car out there during, like, real racing). The Team Craptation Chevy Citation X-11 lived up to all the advance billing and crapped out minutes later. The eagerly anticipated first-ever LeMons Datsun 510 fried its alternator and had to limp off the track, according to tweets from Team Knights Who Say Ni-ssan… whose 200SX has already lost an idler pulley. Not only that, the Team Crumpled Rusted And Pathetic Plymouth Laser just shed a wheel on the track, with unpleasant results.

On the positive side, UDMan's '63 Corvair hasn't missed a beat, continuing to rack up lap after lap. It's too early for Team Trailing Throttle Oversteer to start measuring garage shelf space for the Index Of Effluency trophy, but things are looking good for them so far. We'll be passing along photos and updates as they come in from Connecticut, so check in later!

Some said that even trashed 510s are too expensive, and others protested that LeMons was not worthy of the Bluebird's sacred steel… but next weekend we'll see a genuine 510 take to the track and battle for Nissan pride! Keep in mind that no Nissan product has ever placed higher than fifth in a LeMons race, so plenty will be riding on the somewhat rusty shoulders of the Team WWF '72 Datsun 510. Will it totally dominate? Here's what the team spokesman has to say:

Here are some before photos... The rust is oddly not everywhere... It is however extreme in the places that it does exist... We can actually reach through the center hump and grab the driveshaft...no spare tire hold... completely rusted out...

The car was a "hillclimb/solo 2" car in its past life and has some modifications to that effect...
I acquired it in December of 2006 with the intention to strip it of any usable parts... The main reason I took it was the 13x7 (not so easy to find) American Libre Wheels in great condition... with center caps!!!

Previous to my picking it up, it sat in the weeds with 4 flats and the belly resting directly on the dirt...It sat for about 12 years according to the person that was "keeping" it for a friend that moved to France...The friend ended up passing away there and the car just lay rotting away for years...

If it wasn't for the Lemons series... The car would have been done for, stripped and the remainder trashed...I think it is cool to be able to bring a one time competitor back to life for one more shot at glory...

With the exception of one of our drivers, we are a group of 50/60 something drivers four of whom competed against each othermore than 20 years ago in the northeastern US. Four of us are still active and two of us raced 510s.

Sponsored by SayNeverQuit.com, an "inspirational clothing company" we are "never quitting" and giving it one more shot with a "SayNeverQuit" Datsun 510. We will be doing our best to try to bring some glory to our favorite car... The Datsun 510...

We've seen this 1971 510, this 1972 510, and this 510 wagon so far, and some might consider this '73 610- also known as the Bluebird-U- an honorary 510 as well.



I found this hot-rodded '73 parking near the high school, and its owner was happy to show off his not-so-hellish project car. It has the original L16 for now, but something bigger might find its way under the hood in the future.

We get ads for the 1966 (410), 1967 (510), and 1971 (610) Bluebirds here. The last one, for the '71 Bluebird-U, is a masterpiece of bewildering Japanese salaciousness and makes me want to offer the owner of the DOTS 610 too many dollars for his car. Thanks to LTDScott for the tip!

I've never been good at figuring out 510 model years, but the marker lights and bumpers seem to indicate early 70s vintage.

You can find intra-corporate engine swaps all over the place, but even a 350-powered Chevy Vega or a 4A-GZE-motivated Toyota Starlet is a bit of a snore after you've seen a few. The real engine-swap fun starts happening when you do a mashup involving totally unrelated drivetrain and chassis; that way you get maddening challenging technical hassles and enraged purists thirsting for your heretical blood. It's a lose-lose win-win!

Sure, you can get all manner of potent Nissan powerplants for a 510, but what if you want completely absurd engine revs and all the engine weight behind the front wheels? You could spend crazy downtown money on a wild SR, and then chop a hole in the firewall and move it back… but why not just take a tip from Herr Doktor Wankel and eschew reciprocating mass? That's what the seller of this 1971 Datsun 510 with 1988 RX-7 Turbo engine (go here if the ad disappears) has done, and all you need to do is wrap up damn near everything a few loose ends to get it fully streetworthy! It's got a Frankensteined custom oil pan, some suspension mods, wheel flares, etc. It starts and drives, doesn't have much rust, and the interior is totally stripped ready for restoration. That engine put out 182 horses from the factory, and you'll be able to blow it up get much, much more with the usual turbo tweaks.

182 horsepower in a 2,000-pound car? Why, you might as well be driving a garbage truck powered by a 50cc Honda Cub motor! You need to get the power-to-weight down from 11 pounds per horse to something more stupid sensible, like 500 horsepower in a 1,000-pound car! You get to two pounds per horsepower and you'll have plenty of hill-climbing and passing power, because it's all about the safety! We all know that the cheapest route to 500 horsepower is the good ol' Small-Block Chevrolet V8; you can put together 500 reliable Chevy horses using off-the-shelf parts, no sweat… but what car best suits such an engine? We suggest this 1965 Austin-Healey Sprite (go here if the ad disappears), which is already set up for a small-block Chevy engine. By "set up," we're not sure if that means "Austin engine torn out, space now available for Chevy" or "engine mounts in place, firewall modified," but you'll learn more as you try to negotiate the price down from the $3,000 starting point. It has a "professionally built" chassis and wheel tubs- hey, you need steamroller rubber to propel you into the nearest concrete abutment get all those horses to the pavement- but the planned 4-link rear suspension, she is not finished yet. Does it come with the body and trim parts not shown in the photo? Is there rust? We can't say! Don't worry about that stuff, though, because we can think of plenty of cars with tougher parts availability than the Sprite. Thanks to Radiohound for the tip!

We saw a 510 wagon not long ago, and there was this 4-door 510 last summer, so let's have a coupe for the complete set. This appears to be an early-70s model, judging from the bumpers, but it's tough to make that call on a car as parts-swap-friendly as the 510.


It's banged up and there's a rollbar and racing seat, so this Datsun appears to be some sort of autocross and/or drift monster. I've been hearing crazy talk about a possible 510-based 24 Hours Of LeMons team coming together in Alameda, though no doubt any two-door 510 would be too valuable for such a project. We'll see.

I'm not able to get an exact model year for this car, what with my lack of early-Datsun expertise, but the pre-Malaise bumpers and side marker lights indicate that it's probably a late-60s/early-70s car. I'm sure there's someone out there who can point to some year-specific items and get us an exact year (this car isn't listed in the state smog check database and, no, I'm not willing to risk the rage of car owners by trying to get the VIN off the dash tag).


The wagons don't have the snazzy independent rear suspension installed in the sedan and coupe 510s, but they were still pretty good performers for their day. Other than the big tires, this one appears pretty close to stock condition, but there's no telling what's under the hood.


It's great when two DOTS cars live within sight of one another; that's the Evil 1970 Cadillac across the street.

Jalopnik Snap Judgment: Though this is just a graduate project, it would be interesting to see Nissan use Datsun as way to launch a competitor to Scion and, possibly, Saturn in the USA. We also like the envisioned navigation system that not only lets you know where friends are, but also suggests random driving adventures — though that's probably the setup for an awesome lawsuit. [Benjamin Nawka via Carbodydesign via Carscoop]

Well, hopefully you'll have a better day at the 24hrs than we did (though we did finish up by running fastest lap in our group Sunday afternoon).


Saturday was a mix of rain, sleet, snow, wrong tire choice, and too much throttle in the wrong place....


A liberal application of dead blow hammer and duct tape later.....from a distance - you can't even tell... (but I've got a couple of weeks of sheetmetal and paint ahead. Fortunately no suspension damage) Gotta have it looking real good for the Under 2 litre Trans Am revival for next month.