Jay Leno's Garage

You don't need a high-priced land rocket to have fun behind the wheel. The Ariel Atom is a thrill a minute.

When I hear people blaming the automobile for global warming, I have to chuckle. At the turn of the previous century, the car was seen as a savior. Back then, horses were the primary means of motive power, pulling heavy carts and carrying people.

The custom chopper is changing. The motorcycle enthusiast's interest in bikes with wildly stretched frames and tough-to-ride rear tires looks to be waning a bit. Sure, they still look cool. But ever tried to ride one?

And the winner is... Bernard Juchli!

Car fans everywhere know that Bernard Juchli is the mechanical genius that keeps Jay Leno's Big Dog Garage running on all cylinders, but he's also one of the country's top amateur formula race-car drivers as proven by his November 12 championship win at Willow Springs International Motorsports Park, a 600-acre complex that has been in operation for over 50 years.

Ten years ago, I received a letter from a man named Bob Shotwell who lived in a small town in Minnesota. He knew that I liked old cars from watching me on television. And he wanted to give me one.

I've always been attracted to engineering oddities. You know, things that get the job done in a different way than most. And I'm especially partial to out-of- the-ordinary engines. So it just seems natural that sooner or later I'd own a car with a rotary engine. And I do: a Mazda Cosmo Sport. "A what?" you say.

As someone who likes to work on his own cars and motorcycles, I miss those old-style owner's manuals that told you how to do maintenance and repairs. For example, the 1939 Ford owner's booklet actually explains how the ignition points work and gives the correct point settings--there's a detailed cutaway that tells you how to adjust the distributor vacuum brake. Just in case, it also says, "Your Ford dealer will make this adjustment for you," but the assumption is that you could--and likely would--do it yourself.

I'm really an ordinary guy who gets to do extraordinary things--like get in somebody else's car and try to go 200 mph. You see, the Porsche people had been to my garage and I took them for a ride in my Stanley Steamer. The next thing you know, they're asking me to take a Carrera GT to Talladega and set some records. I guess they thought if an average pinhead like Jay Leno could drive one of these cars at 200 mph, it would show how safe and reliable the car is.

You know, when you look at certain vehicles, knowing nothing about them, you can just tell their country of origin. When you look at a Mercedes-Benz, it looks German. There's something about a Citroën or a Renault--they just look French. And when you see a 1200-pound motorcycle with a big V8 engine, it can be from only one country: the good old U.S. of A.

Few limited-production supercars represent real-world technological breakthroughs. Think about it. Most have followed the same old formula with tube frames, lightweight construction, sophisticated, high-horsepower engines, and some even have carbon-fiber brakes. The all-wheel-drive Porsche 959 and the McLaren F1 were arguably the most advanced supercars of the last century, and nobody has done much that's really different since. Lamborghini's Countach was outrageous-looking, but it wasn't a highly advanced car--it didn't even have ABS.