Mormon Meteor III - Jay Leno's Garage

Built in 1935
750 HP
Only two cars were built

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Meteor

 

What I've always liked about Jay Leno is that he drives all of his cars in his collection. It's not uncommon to see him driving around North Hollywood and Burbank. He always comes around to the In-n-out next to my job in North Hollywood. Very approachable guy.

 

Yeah, living and working in the North Hollywood/Studio City area I've seen him several times driving around. I saw him stop to help a cyclist with a flat on Mulholland, on another occasion I watched him get out of his Shelby GT350 at a stop light to run and give someone an autograph. I've only heard good things about him as a person. If you like old cars or even equipment at all, you should watch this series, it's very interesting. Especially the earlier episodes.

 

About 7 or 8 years ago I was driving to work. Down Cold Water Cyn towards Beverly Hills. I used to see Jay Leno driving the opposite direction a couple of times week. This one time some guy's car breaks down and who's the only one that stops and asks if he needs anything? Jay Leno, driving a car like from 1930s.

 

He not only drives all of his cars, but he also works on them. He is 100% involved in the restoration process. I have been watching his "Jay Leno's Garage" videos since day one. I think the earlier ones are much better, but I still look forward to the new one each week. I'm having a hard time watching the series on CNBC. Too much producer influenced "fluff".

 

Jay's a nice guy who is very generous in sharing the joy of his hobby with others. I think that's why he's doing his new show, because he's totally stoked about his toys, and he wants others to be able to feel the same way. He's a veritable encyclopedia on car history. Of his 200 or so cars, he can tell you the history of the car, who it was built for, the novel mechanical characteristics, and what makes that particular car noteworthy.

I have all his new shows recorded, but have only watched the first one. I know a lot goes into the production of each episode, but it has the "feel" of a couple guys just playing with their cars and hanging out. It's a format that most gearheads can relate to.

 

I remember quite a few years ago I was at the Fabulous Fords Forever show at Knott's Berry Farm. A buddy and I walked out of the show to get a bite to eat at Fatburgers on the corner. When we got out to the street my buddy noticed everyone looking at a Ford Fiesta at the light. My buddy was like, "Why is everyone looking at that Fiesta?" I responded with, "Whoe! That's a Ford SHOgun! That's a mid-engined Fiesta powered by a SHO engine." Then the person next to me replies, "And it's driven by Jay Leno" He ended up pulling into Fatburger and a crowded formed around him real quick. My buddy said, "Why don't you go talk to him?" I was like, what for? (I've never been one to bug a celebrity for trivial stuff) Lets eat! So we go in and stand in line. I hear an older gentleman ordering his food in front of us with a thick Texan drawl. I turn to my buddy and say, "I know that voice" When the guy turns around, sure enough it was my hero, Carroll Shelby! Oddly enough, I ended running into Shelby 3 more times before he passed. Unfortunately, I never bugged him and always left him alone so I never met him and got to tell him what an inspiration he was to me

 

My wife likes this sitcom called "Last Man Standing" with Tim Allen, and I sometimes watch the recordings with her. A couple weeks ago there was a good one with Jay playing the obnoxious car guy neighbor. It was a pretty good episode, and it didn't seem like Jay was even acting, just being himself.

 

crossed paths w/ Jay twice... decades ago, I was on the infield bleachers at CalSpeedway when a small crowd formed and someone poked his head inside of my car directly behind the bleachers. It was Jay. I yelled, "hey Jay", he looked up, I yelled "that's my car" and he gave me a thumbs up. Some time later, I was towing on the 405 by Mulholland, Jay was driving one of his old car w/ the hand shifters on the outside of the car, he's wearing googles. I honked, he looked and I gave him the thumbs up. We're even .