Audi 2007 Annual Report Download - page 52

– all cars. Beautiful, fast, old… it makes
no difference, as long as they have four
wheels and an engine encased in sheet
metal. Over 200 cars and motorcycles
from almost every decade of car pro-
duction are parked in his garage. A se-
ries of warehouses in an industrial park
to the north of L.A. are full to the brim
with automobile memorabilia: From
Stanley steamers to jet bikes, hirsute
1970s HEMI muscle cars to a Fiat
Topolino, eco-cars and super cars. The
latest addition to his fleet is an Audi R8.
There are few private collections as
large, eclectic and lovingly maintained
as Leno’s. He owns a selection of auto-
motive history that would delight even
the pickiest connoisseur.
Although Leno has spent a fortune
on his car collection, the garage is any-
thing but a museum. Jay buys cars be-
cause he likes driving them – all. Jay
and his cars are a regular sight on the
roads of Southern California. You can
see them on Leno’s daily journey to the
studio, on the racetrack or on weekend
trips. He has even been known to drive
one of his most unusual possessions to
work – a huge American LaFrance fire
engine which he discovered rusting in a
hangar and nursed to museum condition
as he has done with so many other cars.
Even so, you may sometimes also see
one of his vintage vehicles broken down
by the roadside. Stanley steamers and
their like might be stunning to look at
and challenging to drive, but pre-World
War I technology is not the most reli-
able. Leno’s obsession (and obsession is
not too strong a word) arose in 1959,
when he was nine years old, from a
chance meeting with a man in a classic
British sports car parked outside a barn
near his parents’ home. “It was a Jaguar
XK120. Steel gray with red leather
seats. It was stunning,” remembers
Leno. “I stood there open-mouthed at
the end of the driveway. He motioned
for me to come over: ‘Hey, you like
cars?’ he asked. And he let me sit be-
hind the wheel and play with the con-
trols.” It was a moment that changed his
life. His first car was a Ford truck, but
he got it at the tender age of 14 and so
was too young to drive it on the road.
“So I rebuilt it and then drove 1,500
miles in it,” says Leno. “300 yards at a
time. Up and down our driveway. I still
have the crick in my neck,” he grins.
Having nowhere to drive the truck ex-
cept up and down the family drive only
intensified Leno’s passion for cars.
As his career as a comedian revved up,
it was touch and go whether cars would
pay for his comedy or vice-versa. In the
evenings, he used to appear at various
improvisation clubs in New York. By
day, he worked at a Rolls-Royce dealer.
“Once I had to deliver a Corniche con-
vertible. I had to collect 30,000 dollars
from the guy buying it.” On the way
back, he stopped off at a comedy club in
Times Square. It could easily have been
his downfall. He was allowed to do a set
on stage, and he finally set off for home.
But two hours later, he remembered
with alarm that the paper bag containing
the 30,000 dollars had been left on top
of the piano. “Those were the longest
two hours of my life,” he remembers.
“I got back to the club at three in the
morning. I jumped right up on to the
stage where a girl was singing, saw that
the bag was still lying on the piano,
grabbed it and made my exit with the
excuse that I’d forgotten my lunch!”
Mixing work and pleasure was to be-
come increasingly difficult for this car-
crazy comedian. He rarely has guests on
the show because of a car connection.
But the “Big Dog Garage,” where he
keeps his cars, often welcomes visitors
such as Pink Floyd drummer Nick Ma-
son. Only most stars have no idea about
cars, Leno complains. Just recently one
of his celebrity guests said during the
commercial break that he wanted to do
something for the environment, and was
going to get a hybrid because “it doesn’t
use any gas.” Leno shakes his head:
“What could I say? I just asked him
what he thought hybrid meant.”
In 2009, as he approaches 60, Jay Leno
will hand over his talk show to his suc-
cessor. At last, he will have more time
for his greatest passion. Car crazy as he
is, he cannot even face Christmas with-
out them. “Persuading my wife wasn’t
easy,” he says. But because English lit-
erature is his wife’s passion and Dickens
is her favorite, Jay hit upon a clever
idea. “The people who created the Star
Wars set turned my garage into the most
beautiful Dickensian-looking Christmas
place you’ve ever seen.” Unfortunately,
in Dickens’ time, there were no cars. So
Mr. and Mrs. Leno cruised through Los
Angeles at Christmas in a 1909 Baker
Electric. It would most likely have blend-
ed in well at that time: “It looks like a
Victorian phone booth on wheels,” says
Leno. And unlike hybrids, this one really
doesn’t use gasoline. Thoroughly mod-
ern, in other words. •
Jeremy Hart is one of the world’s most widely
published car journalists. He writes for the
Sunday Times and the Independent on Sun-
day as well as Top Gear and Car Graphic.
He has been friends with Jay Leno for years.
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Jay Leno was born on April 28,
1950 in New Rochelle, New York
State. He began his career in
small New York comedy clubs,
where he appeared almost
every night. In 1992, Leno took
over from the king of late-night
TV, Johnny Carson, as the pre-
senter of NBC’s Tonight Show.
He will leave the show in 2009.
Jester and
amateur
chef: Nor-
mally Jay
Leno uses
the oven.