Jay Leno's Garage

By Ben Stewart
Photographs by Ben Stewart
Published in the November 28, 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics

Check out video of Jay on his new performance cruiser below, then click here for more from the Green Garage!

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? Without proper cornering clearance, suspension travel or stable rake and trail dimensions, these bikes are best left for straight roads or the show circuit. Today, more and more folks are looking for custom cruisers with practicality—including Jay Leno.

Jay worked with Mobil 1 and S&S Cycle to develop a custom performance cruiser that not only looks great but can sneak up a canyon road with near sport-bike finesse. And in keeping with the goals for his Green Garage project with Popular Mechanics, the "Tonight Show" host's new bike also meets the tougher 2008 California Tier II emissions standards as well as the 2010 EPA standards for motorcycles.

S&S is known for building powerhouse V-Twins. And since 2008 is the company’s 50th anniversary, they used this bike as a showcase for their newest engine, the “X Wedge”. The X Wedge is an air-cooled, 117 cid, 56 degree V-Twin that develops 115 hp and 130 lb.-ft. of torque at he crankshaft. And it’s paired here to S&S’s six-speed manual.

“For me this is the only air cooled motor that feels as tight and quiet as one that is liquid cooled, and that’s saying a lot. It’s got everything a guy could ask for, especially in an era when motorcycle manufacturers are getting away from air cooled engines, This bike has performance, power and a comfortable ride, which is especially important at my age,” said Leno.

The design for this Leno bike happened organically. Jay has always liked the look of the British Café racers and so did quite a few of the team around the S&S shop. So they borrowed cues from those bikes in addition to today’s naked bikes like the Ducatti Monster and power cruisers like Harley’s V-Rod.

The front and rear suspension systems come from Ohlins-which supply many of the world’s most extreme sport bikes. The wheelbase is 60 inches and there’s 28 degrees of rake and 5.2 -inches of trail. That’s not quite the dimensions of a true sport bike, but it is right in the mix when compared to the production power cruisers on the market. And of course, massive Brembo brakes at each end mean this 550-lb muscle machine can stop with the best production motorcycles.

The entire chassis was built in-house at S&S. And though they don’t actually sell complete motorcycles, this S&S frame was developed as a testbed for the X-Wedge motor. And soon, S&S will be offering the engine, transmission, oil tank, chassis and swingarm as separate parts of a “performance cruiser kit”. So a bike builder could, conceivably create a bike very much like the one you see here—right in his own garage. Now that’s our kind of DIY project.