James May Visits Jay Leno's Garage

I'm at Jay Leno's garage and um this is a bit of a privilege really the trouble is he doesn't drink so he's not interested in Jin he said he's going to give me a tour of the cars which is great but I'm going to try and drop a plugin that's that's my plan let's see hello sir follow me [Music] L it's a 1934 rolls yep P2 chassis we designed and hand hammered the body here and it's all Rolls-Royce especially the Rolls-Royce Merlin oh God 27 L 6 weers is it supercharged no no we don't need

to well the supercharger see it's mounted propeller end into the yeah the supercharger would go here normally but that it it takes 150 horsepower to drive that so this you've got over 1,000 horsepower with plenty of torque through a six-speed manual gearbox so it's quite quick yeah that do see we have our little thing here this is this is kind of an interesting story a friend of mine his father was an angile he was an American and he wanted America into World War II to protect Britain and America was reluctant so he went he joined

the irf and well in England he met an English girl and he married her he got a pregnant two weeks later he flew to he fought in Germany and got shot down ni and so his it's a tribute to his son we put this Merlin engine in in this thing about his dad dying at Normandy Beach on uh on June 6 1944 but uh where did you get the engine from 1944 at the havin mosquito oh so it is a Pua Merlin then not a no no no propa Merlin L propa Merlin are you English

a bit fussy about that type of thing we just you know no no proper proper Merlin proper Merlin this is also 19 194 Fiat with the 1914 Fiat 12a AO engine 22 L six and it runs these all street legal I drive them all I mean this look like the plumbing in a Brooklyn apartment building doesn't it yeah doesn't b or a very very trendy coffee bar yeah that's right it would be trendy well this would be in the background but this actually runs and drives it's quite fast you want to hear it run yeah

gool on oh here we go [Music] [Music] been set [Music] clean up it's hilarious when you pull up the people in the light and they have the window down they're like you just shoot you're just shooting Fireballs to people if you like really big engines what's that from this is from an m47 patent tank air cooled put Bosch fuel injection we put indic car turbos on it hooked it to a six-speed double overdrive Allison Transmission it's a cool yeah weighs 5 tons it's quite fast does a quarter mile in the 12s which is pretty good

I mean you move in 5 tons I'm amazed that that cylinder can can be cooled though all the way back there well see what you have is you have all these flaps depending on the weather you open and close them but this is meant to move an 80 ton tank so in a 5ton car it's really under stress but the heat that comes off here oh my you can cook hot dogs on this this also is a grill yeah well it is actually ideally shaped for the hot dog Enthusiast right right did you ever see

this no I don't think I did oh I've had this 30 years it's a 3 l Bentley with the 8 L Bentley engine now the mulliner and if you come on this side twin turbochargers oo so it's quite fast it it I mean it's about 400 horsepower onest horsepower but torque up the yin-yang it's really quite good what's the red L on the engine about 3 and a half thousand if that 3,000 I mean it just it pulls so hard whatever gear you're in that doesn't weigh anything let's take a look at the triamp I

got that one for free guy gave it to me because he couldn't get it to run so we just rebuilt it and it works great oh and you got the proper dashboard I don't like it when people muck about with them and they put gloss on the wood and yeah well that really spoils them they just got to beit like no it's a classic Modern Vintage yeah and they still actually quite good to drive oh very nice can you remember everything you've got it I hope so but but it's all in your head oh yeah

yeah I'm dyslexic so I don't really write anything down it's just easier to remember it but if I said to you do you have a Lamborghini urco h no I don't have one that don't no but you've got a kunach I've seen that kunach two muras two aspas I know you're a fan of this yes but food I think you refer to it as food served by people with paper hats right all my meals come from people with paper hats I'm quite proud of that okay and they're all announced with numbers yes yeah so you

know number one two8 now whatever what what what kind of food do you think of burgers last time I was here we talked about in and out in and out was quite You' been to Inn out yet not yet we we only got here last night well then yeah Inn out less than 24 hours yes yes go to Inn out very good nnl is excellent if you want like a really high class Burger the Burger Lounge it's that's more expensive Burger Lounge Lounge but that's a grass-fed beef and all this is you know now here's

something you would like see that it's an ink yeah a guy bought it new in ' 62 parked in his garage in ' 67 and just started drinking and he died like four years ago it was covered with the guy was a hoarder he had TV sets he had water uh water heaters pile on top of it when when he died yeah when when he died the family said our uncle had a car some kind of English car you want you want to see what it is so we unloaded everything 177,000 original miles it's like

a brand new car original exhaust original top original plastic window original paint original everything it's it's only got 17,000 miles it's got the Jack it's got all the stuff that comes with is in series one series one yeah is that the reasonable paint yes it's 100% original in fact it'd be perfect if you hadn't piled water heaters and everything on top of it but look at look at the interior bu that's far St here I'll show you the really interesting part here can you see the chalk Mark still from the factory that is because it

doesn't rain in California so nothing washed off all this stuff which normally gets brittle and falls apart it's in here I mean it's exactly as it left the factory and it runs the Clock Works the Top's never been down actually I haven't put it down yet but how often does that happen though CU there must be countless times people say oh so and so's died there's an old car in the car and you go there well in California pretty a you know the interesting thing about living here you got Lockheed you've got northw Grumman we

got so we got a lot of Engineers here you see a lot of little houses with giant garages yeah and in those giant garages are all kinds of interesting things like this this was less than a mile from here it it' been there for 50 years and I never knew about it nobody did yeah amazing this one is interesting this is a homebuilt special this is series one Jag with a series two front end that's called the big wheel right we shortened the wheel base we took out the uh took out the six and put

in a V12 took it to 5.7 L willwood disc brakes 5-speed Jag transmission I call it my Jaguar Daytona cuz it's really like a Ferrari Daytona it's a V12 short wheelbase with a stick you know most of these are kind of luxury CPS you know oh there's a fascinating CR see the TBO logo yep I think that's the only unrestored one they only built 25 of these but it's nice original car parked in 65 how do you find this oh that's out here come here tell me what this is is it a camera no uh

okay this is 1924 before cars had radios you had this that does your record stay on doesn't it jump a lot ye of little faith is that that actually deserved to be used in the car well you you if you go on a picnic you take this with you but know the cars got cuz it was that old wouldn't it [Music] you get the idea I'm assuming that's clearable that music cuz it's quite old it's virtually indistinguishable from a an iPhone yeah exactly but you get the idea it's kind of cool is it but no

electricity where did you find that oh they they sold thousands of these it's very nicely made it is it's quite nice have you seen this before yes I think I have you remember that one yeah I've been driving that for 20 years that's evil oh it's great you know what it is right no I remember but I remember you showing it well perhaps this will refresh your memory you can guess what kind of an engine [Music] is it's a c18 Alison out of a bell Ranger helicopter jet engine weighs 4 175 lb pretty light 400

horsepower quite fast yeah oh yeah no it pulls nicely well it pulls nicely with his 400 horsepower yeah it does it does again I I live in a hilly area so you need that little extra yeah come on next door Gordon Murray's first car [Music] yep these are all Ste Vehicles no I drove a steeve car not one as yours but I drove a Stanley yeah they're nice aren't they it was but I found it actually faintly terrified because had a very stiff regulator you know on the rice of the wheel it shouldn't be that

stiff no I know it shouldn't but this one wasn't I thought well if you don't they rust so you got to but I thought what if that snaps off as I push on it well then you're yeah you are aren't you cuz there's nothing you can do well that's sort of the fun isn't it yeah and this these are dobles those are probably the rarest steam car in the world that BMW 3 C look that steam no that's not steam that's not mine though so all right show you the Machine Shop did you ever see

our jet car no I think I've seen fixes yeah this is street legal Honeywell lt101 jet engine out one of the big attack Euro helicopters there going to a Corvette gear boox says EIP which is that well we we built this in 2006 to run on biofuel so we started on jet a you know jet fuel yeah and as soon as it's running you switch over to biofuel so any any a bit like to chry a turban car so but biofuel when they realize tacos would be 10 bucks a piece they kind of that whole

biofuel thing fell apart but it it runs fine would run on myin yeah yeah on that's right yeah might DUI but hey you want something to drink I wouldn't mind actually yeah come on here something to drink you guys I'm trying to remember where the kitchen bit is kitchen's right over here you're obviously doing a good job you don't seem to have any oil leaks anywhere no everything's everything here is pretty much on the button like that Ace wonderfully fast bike oh wonderful bike H there's a throttle on the left right here that's on the

right good [Music] wonderful bike I like that as you're riding along you can look down and remind yourself how an engine works oh yeah and all the moving bits it's so hard to drive is that well you have two brakes both on the rear wheel so when you're on on this this pulls a wheel on that side brake on that side right this one pulls a brake on this side okay now well you also have a foot clutch so then you also have a hand clutch to override the foot clutch so the H clutch in

release the foot brake put your foot on this part of the brake and then downshift here and then when you pull away release the hand clutch actually just easy to go excuse me sorry excuse me excuse me sorry sorry which foot did you put on the ground then well that's that's that's D isn't it yeah yeah you try to slow down then you go okay but it's it's it's quite it's, 1400 C so it's quite powerful I mean these were fast bikes four cylinders and you see how easily it starts you just drop your foot

does it stop though it retards progress okay it pulls up retards progress yeah yeah go you that's the engines in the Merlin These this is the bru room in here 1930 BSA these are all Bruff in here oh go Bruff car so this is the biggest collection of bre sudden W well that's what they tell me I don't mean that to sound uh raduo there but say that's what they say I didn't turn out to do that way it just happened to be that way yeah that's my everyday Bruff that's the one I drive on

a regular basis daily Bruff that's the daily Bru yeah there's so much stuff in here yeah it gets a little overdone there but it's do you ever a sell any thing get out no no no never sell anything I know this is the sort of question that someone like me would ask but you dusts everything oh well it doesn't really get Dusty it's not bad no I mean if I'm going to drive something we take it next door and blow it off and blow off yeah yeah it's fine you see it's not like it's not

like it's hot cold hot cold and condensation and you know all that kind of stuff so it's it's a dry climate so everything preserves nicely and do both of your asers work yeah they both run that's the olds are gangs that are a bit long on they you know they're not bad if if you if you use them a lot they last a lot longer most people it sits gas begins to uh uh degrade and then it doesn't run then it leaks and gaskets dry out but it's like this thing everybody complain I I've had

this 10 years it's still on the original battery and I tested the battery the other day it's at 92% because every time I take it out I run through every function the car does I lower it I raise it I run it on hybrid I switch back to gas so I use everything so everything everything lasts a lot longer I mean I meet people on their second and third battery because they don't bother to plug it in and it sits for a month and it goes dead and you know but no I I love this

thing this is very true the Machinery I mean everything even clocks and yeah wases if you don't if they're not run right they don't work yeah as simple as that just exactly they they they get a bit of a strw PO exactly I've had two testers now and two I3 BMWs and two two hydrogen fuel cell cars I've never replaced any brake pads yeah you never have to that's the great thing about it yeah they're almost they're for emergencies yeah I had my my other Tesla N9 years I never replaced The Brak yeah they you

just don't need to do anything to them from you pump the tires up yeah yeah cool I remember we talked about this before actually that electric cars will save internal combustion cols cuz they be that's my feeling you know your internal combustion becomes like your snowmobile it's something you weekend yeah right yeah you go out and use it and then when you're stuck in traffic you take your electric car driving a 426 Hemi in London traffic doesn't make a lot of sense absolutely awful yeah no I'm with you there if it can be a hobby

I'm perfectly happy fine with me yeah great what another first world problem solved there you are we solve all problems thank you for watching yes yes [Music] nah [Music]