If there’s one garage full of vintage and exotic cars that even non-gearheads know about, it’s Jay Leno’s. The host of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno has a car collection in his Big Dog Garage, as he's named it, that includes steam cars from the 1870s and an Ariel Atom, a small-batch, open-chassis car built in Oregon.
In addition to his nightly television duties, Leno writes a column for Popular Mechanics, where he details his test drives, discusses automotive history, and offers readers tips for collecting. He also has undertaken a project in conjunction with PM to “green” his garage. He’s installed a state-of-the-art parts washer that eschews toxic solvents in favor of grime-chomping bacteria and vertical wind turbines on the roof to power his equipment.
Leno scours parking garages and barns for long-forgotten Duesenbergs and other examples from defunct manufacturers. But his garage isn’t limited to restored vintage autos -- he also has room for quite a few modern exotics. The Big Dog Garage has, after all, 17,000 square feet of space.
- Ariel Atom
- Leno owns #001, the first U.S.-built Atom
- 2-liter engine, 300 hp
- 0-60 in under 3 seconds
- No doors, windshield, other amenities
- Corvette C6RS
- Leno has the first flex-fuel Corvette, converted by Pratt & Miller
- 8.2-liter V8, 600 hp
- Uses E85, an 85% corn-based ethanol mixture
- Corvette Racing’s GT-class American Le Mans racers switched to E85 for 2008
- McLaren F1
- Leno’s is the 15th of 65 street-legal F1s built
- 6.1-liter V12 BMW engine
- 240-mph top speed
- Materials used in construction include carbon fiber, magnesium, titanium, and gold
- Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
- Leno has put more miles on this car than any other in his garage
- AMG supercharged 5.4-liter engine, 626 hp
- 0-60 in 3.8 seconds
- Fastest automatic-transmission car in the world
- Porsche Carrera GT
- This was Leno’s first Porsche purchase, thanks to Jerry Seinfeld’s prodding
- 5.7- liter V10, 605 hp
- 0-60 in just over 3 seconds
- Six-speed manual transmission with Porsche’s ceramic composite clutch
