Adam Carolla owns roughly ten race cars that Paul Newman actually drove, and right now none of them are the car I cannot stop thinking about. Carolla is currently show prepping an ultra-rare yellow Datsun 510 out of Jamaica in his own shop, and he has been documenting the whole thing on his vlog for anybody who wants to watch a legend get built back to life. If you have listened to Carolla’s podcast for more than ten minutes you already know this about him. The man built a career on being a regular guy with a wrench in his hand, and that is exactly why I have always liked him.
Start with why he even has the credibility to chase a car like this. In 2016 Carolla dropped $4,840,000 at a Monterey auction for the 1979 Porsche 935 that Newman co-drove with Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen to a class win and second overall at Le Mans, and he sold five of his vintage Lamborghinis to pay for it. Not one Lamborghini. Five. Newman’s own racing life started small too, driving a Datsun for Bob Sharp Racing in the early seventies before piloting one of Sharp’s 510 B-sedans in SCCA competition by 1972. Carolla has said he owns most of the Newman cars Bob Sharp built, plus the race gear Sharp saved from those years.
Photo: Nissan
Carolla’s own #85 BRE 510 wears the red, white and blue livery that took John Morton to back to back SCCA Trans-Am 2.5 championships in 1971 and 1972, a livery so dominant Datsun earned the nickname “giant killer” for beating BMWs and Alfas nobody thought a little Japanese sedan could touch. He raced that car again this month at the 2026 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, an event finally themed “Icons of Japanese Motorsport” after fifty years of European and American marques hogging the spotlight.
Photo: Nissan
But here is the build that actually has me hooked. Weeks before Monterey Car Week, Carolla dropped a vlog titled “Showprepping a RARE Datsun 510,” walking through a genuinely rare yellow-liveried 510 with roots in Jamaica that he is bringing back to show condition himself. You can watch the actual prep work, not a highlight reel, at the link below, and it is worth your time if you have ever wrung your knuckles on a bolt that did not want to come loose. Yellow 510s do not just turn up at the parts store. The best known one in Datsun history is Pete Brock’s own personal street car, painted screaming yellow and run as a two-page Motor Trend centerfold in March 1973 under the nickname “Screaming Yellow Zonker,” built from a $2,300 stock two-door and about $2,500 in BRE parts to show off what the catalog could do. A yellow 510 done right is basically Bigfoot in this hobby, and Carolla is out here hunting one on camera.
Watch the build:
The Adam Carolla Vlog, “Showprepping a RARE Datsun 510”: youtube.com/watch?v=aptNiBaLEw0
Adam Carolla’s main YouTube channel for follow up episodes: youtube.com/@TheAdamCarollaShow1
He did not stop at collecting cars either. Carolla directed “Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman,” a full documentary on Newman’s 35 year career with Nissan as presenting sponsor, and he has loaned six of the Newman cars, including the 1979 Nissan 280ZX Twin Turbo V8 and both Oldsmobile Cutlass Trans-Ams, to the National Automobile Museum in Reno for public display. A guy sitting on a seven figure collection could just as easily keep it behind a locked roll up door. Putting the cars on display, on film, and now on a vlog for free is the same instinct that makes him talk shop with callers instead of talking down to them.
Photo: Nissan
Photo: National Automobile Museum
Guys with this kind of money usually buy the trophy car and call it a day. Carolla keeps going back for the deep cuts, the backup cars, the shop hacks, the cars nobody else would think to save, and then he shows his work instead of hiding it. That is a blue collar instinct wearing a seven figure garage, and it is why I have the vlog bookmarked until this yellow 510 rolls out of the shop finished.
Go watch the build, then tell me: does a yellow 510 with real Jamaica roots beat the famous red, white and blue livery, or does nothing top the original giant killer paint job? Drop your pick in the comments.