Among the rarest machines in Jay Leno’s garage is a car that sounds more like a jet than an automobile. The Chrysler Turbine Car, developed in the 1960s, was one of the boldest experiments in automotive history, and Leno owns one of the only surviving examples that still runs. Chrysler produced just 55 turbine cars between 1963 and 1964, then destroyed most of them. Today, only nine are believed to survive, and only a handful can still drive.
Leno first saw the car as a teenager at the 1964 World’s Fair, where the futuristic vehicle circled a demonstration track. The sound and design left a lasting impression that eventually led him to acquire one. The car’s body was designed under Elwood Engel and built in Turin, Italy, by legendary coachbuilder Ghia. Underneath, instead of a piston engine, a turbine power plant could run on diesel, kerosene, and other combustible fuels—a feature Chrysler demonstrated publicly during an era when most vehicles depended on a single fuel type.
Between 1963 and 1966, Chrysler placed turbine cars with roughly 200 American families for real-world testing. Drivers reported impressively smooth acceleration and a distinctive jet-like whine. Despite the positive feedback, the project never reached mass production. Challenges involving cost, efficiency, emissions, manufacturing complexity, and throttle response ultimately doomed the idea.
Leno’s own turbine car eventually suffered a devastating engine failure. Replacement parts were nearly impossible to find, and few people still understood the technology. The restoration involved Williams International and veterans who had worked on turbine development decades earlier. Once rebuilt, the numbers proved extraordinary.
The turbine idles at roughly 22,000 revolutions per minute and can spin past 44,000, operating at temperatures that would destroy many conventional engines. From the driver’s seat, the car feels surprisingly normal, with familiar pedals, steering, and controls, despite the exotic machinery beneath. Hidden among Leno’s hundreds of vehicles, the Chrysler Turbine Car represents a surviving piece of an alternate automotive future. It is a reminder of an era when engineers pursued radical ideas, and in Leno’s garage, that forgotten future still starts, moves, and screams like a jet.
Leno’s collection also includes the Ford Shogun, a late-1980s Ford Festiva transformed into a sleeper with astonishing performance. The Shogun was created by Chuck Beck and Rick Titus, both with strong motorsport backgrounds. Beck had pit crew experience with the Ford GT40 Le Mans program and once fitted a Lamborghini V12 into a motorcycle. Titus had raced the Ford RS200, one of the wildest rally cars ever built.
Their creation involved removing the small Festiva engine and installing a 220-horsepower Yamaha V6 from a Ford Taurus SHO. The engine sits behind the front seats, sending power to the rear wheels. The car weighs barely a ton and rockets to 60 mph in about 4. 6 seconds, running the quarter-mile in under 13 seconds.
That pace allowed it to compete with, and sometimes beat, stock Porsche 911s that cost far more. Beck and Titus hoped to build as many as 250 Shoguns through their company, Special Editions. But at around $42,000 in 1990 money—close to $80,000 today—the car struggled to find buyers. Its plain exterior made it difficult to justify the price, even with amenities like air conditioning, leather racing seats, and a Momo steering wheel.
Only eight Shoguns were built, including a single prototype and seven customer cars. Leno acquired chassis number three when it was new and later added a nitrous oxide system, pushing the car’s performance even further. It remains one of the purest sleeper builds in his entire collection, proof that innovation and performance don’t always need flashy looks. The garage also contains the Decopods, strange streamlined machines created by artist Randy Grub.
These vehicles began life as ordinary Piaggio scooters before being transformed into rolling pieces of Art Deco-inspired art. Leno owns two of the earliest examples, and at first glance, they barely resemble scooters at all. Their long, bullet-shaped aluminum bodies look like something from a 1930s science fiction illustration. One version is based on a traditional two-wheeled model, while another uses the three-wheeled Piaggio MP3 platform.
Grub removes roughly 25 pounds of plastic bodywork and replaces it with hand-shaped aluminum panels, using techniques closer to vintage aircraft construction than modern scooter manufacturing. Despite their radical appearance, the Decopods remain fully functional. The two-wheeled version leans naturally into corners, while the three-wheeled design preserves the handling characteristics of the original MP3. Depending on the configuration, they can approach speeds of around 70 mph.
The streamlined shell also helps control airflow around the rider, reducing crosswind turbulence. Leno’s connection to Grub spans years. Their most famous collaboration is the Blast Special, better known as Jay’s tank car, powered by a massive military engine. Compared to that intimidating machine, the Decopods reveal a more playful side of Grub’s creativity—smaller, lighter, and almost whimsical, yet built with the same serious craftsmanship.
Built by hand in Grants Pass, Oregon, the Decopods were produced in extremely small numbers. They are not motorcycles in the traditional sense, not cars, and certainly not ordinary scooters. They are rolling experiments in design, and that is precisely why they belong in Leno’s collection, which celebrates imagination as much as horsepower and price. Another forgotten piece of American racing history sits deep in the garage: the Cunningham C3.
Briggs Cunningham, heir to a meatpacking fortune, dreamed of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans with an American car and driver—a feat no one had achieved. In 1952, race officials changed the rules, requiring manufacturers to build at least 25 road-legal cars to qualify. Cunningham, who had never intended to become a car maker, set up a factory in West Palm Beach, Florida. Each car was hand-built on a modified racing chassis and powered by a potent Chrysler Hemi V8 capable of reaching 60 mph in about 7 seconds and topping out near 150 mph.
Cunningham sent completed chassis across the Atlantic to Italian coachbuilder Vignale, who crafted elegant bodies from designs by Giovanni Michelotti. Each car required nearly two months of meticulous handwork. Priced between $9,000 and $11,000—considerably higher than comparably equipped Cadillacs—the Cunningham C3 was exclusive from the start. Only 25 examples were completed, split between five open cabriolets and 20 coupes.
Its distinctive design earned it a place on the Museum of Modern Art’s list of the 10 best contemporary automobiles of 1953. On the track, Cunningham’s team never took first place, but third-place results at Le Mans in 1953 and 1954 stood as remarkable achievements against factory-backed giants from Ferrari and Jaguar. Despite this success and the car’s undeniable beauty, the C3 never gained lasting recognition. Production stopped quickly, and the company’s modest marketing reach meant it didn’t earn the steady attention European rivals enjoyed.
Today, most casual car fans walk past the Cunningham without a second glance. Leno values it not for fame or top speed, but because it represents a forgotten stretch of American automotive ambition. Having it in the collection keeps those stories alive instead of letting them fade under flashier vehicles. Decades after Chrysler abandoned its turbine experiment, Leno’s garage houses a second turbine-powered marvel: the EcoJet.
Born from a conversation between Leno and his longtime chief mechanic, Bernard Juchli, the EcoJet stands as a modern testament to jet propulsion on wheels. Juchli brought sketches to Ed Welburn, then vice president of global design at General Motors, and within two weeks, GM’s Advanced Design Studio transformed rough concepts into a striking vehicle borrowing design cues from fighter jets and Formula 1 cars. Built on a modified Corvette Z06 hydroformed aluminum frame, the EcoJet features a body crafted from carbon fiber layered over Kevlar. Its core is a Honeywell LT101 turbine engine, the same power plant found in Bell 222 helicopters and U.
S. Coast Guard rescue helicopters, producing roughly 650 horsepower and running primarily on biodiesel. Starting the engine requires a small tank of jet fuel before switching over after ignition. The EcoJet manages barely 6 miles per gallon, a figure Leno himself jokes about.
Practicality is sacrificed in favor of proving that turbine-powered road cars remain viable decades after the original Chrysler experiment ended. The EcoJet is theoretically capable of speeds approaching 245 mph, though it exists solely as a showpiece and test platform. Its existence marks a 40-year conversation between two engineering eras—one chasing turbine innovation in the 1960s, the other pushing it into the 2000s. Both ultimately found themselves sidelined by industries favoring conventional technology.
Most viewers of Leno’s show remember his McLarens and Lamborghinis, but few realize his garage quietly harbors two jet-engine road cars born four decades apart. Beyond the famous makes, Leno’s collection shelters automotive history’s forgotten names. Among these rare survivors is a Wills Sainte Claire, crafted by C. Harold Wills, one of Henry Ford’s earliest collaborators who helped develop the steel used in the Model T chassis.
After leaving Ford in 1919, Wills invested his fortune into building cars under his own name in Marysville, Michigan, powered by an innovative overhead cam V8 that cooled itself without a water pump. The company produced between 12,000 and 14,000 cars before folding. Today, only about 80 Wills Sainte Claire vehicles remain. Leno’s example spent decades hidden in a shipping container in the desert before being rescued and lovingly restored, preserving a slice of early 20th century American engineering.
Nearby sits an NSU Spider, the first rotary engine car sold publicly, built years before Mazda popularized the Wankel engine. Produced between 1964 and 1967, only 2,375 of these small 54-horsepower rear-engined cars were made. NSU gambled its future on a larger rotary sedan, but reliability issues with rotor seals doomed the effort, leading to the brand’s absorption into what later became Audi. The collection also features a Jensen CV8, a British grand tourer pairing a robust American Chrysler 5.
8-liter V8 with a fiberglass body, steel doors, and advanced adjustable shocks. Built between 1962 and 1966, only around 500 were made, overshadowed for decades by its more famous sibling, the Jensen Interceptor. Each of these brands—Wills Sainte Claire, NSU, and Jensen—represented inventiveness and quality that ultimately succumbed to market pressures. None of these marques survive today in any meaningful way, and their stories are mostly lost outside dedicated circles.
Yet their cars endure as monuments to innovation that challenged conventions and dared to be different. Few cars have ever carried the mystique of the Mercedes-Benz 600, a machine that represented the absolute peak of luxury in the 1960s and 1970s. This was not simply an expensive sedan but a technological showcase designed for presidents, royalty, celebrities, and political leaders. What made the 600 extraordinary was its complex hydraulic system, which operated the windows, seats, sunroof, and trunk lid with smooth, silent precision instead of electric motors.
The system was incredibly advanced for its era, but also extremely complicated and expensive to repair. The Mercedes-Benz 600 featured an exceptionally rigid chassis and heavy steel body, with some versions weighing more than 5,000 pounds. Its 6. 3-liter V8 still delivered surprising performance, pushing the massive luxury car to speeds approaching 130 mph.
Its price placed it above many of the world’s most prestigious automobiles, attracting owners ranging from John Lennon and Elvis Presley to heads of state. Mercedes produced several unusual versions, including the extended-wheelbase Pullman and Landaulet models with convertible rear sections for dignitaries. Armored versions were also built. But Leno’s 1972 Mercedes-Benz 600 is even more unusual.
Mercedes never officially sold a supercharged 600, yet his car was modified by specialist Karl Middelhauve, who upgraded the engine with fuel injection and a supercharger, reportedly increasing output from around 300 horsepower to approximately 525. The result is believed to be a one-of-a-kind Mercedes-Benz 600, a car that already carried enormous presence but now possesses performance its original designers never intended. Its appearance remains understated, looking like the stately luxury sedan associated with diplomats and high-ranking officials. That reputation has produced memorable moments, including an incident where an Iranian man reportedly became nervous after seeing the 600 behind him, assuming it had something to do with secret police.
Owning a 600 is not straightforward. The hydraulic system’s complicated components can be extraordinarily expensive, with even an original window switch running into thousands of dollars. Restoring the hydraulic system takes specialized knowledge that few mechanics possess today. Many collectors hesitate to drive their Mercedes-Benz 600s often, but Leno takes the opposite approach.
He starts his 600, drives it, services it, and appreciates it like a working automobile rather than a museum piece. That mindset explains why Leno’s collection stands apart. He protects automotive history by keeping it active. His 600, tucked among hundreds of vehicles, stands as one of the strongest demonstrations of that philosophy.
What truly sets Jay Leno’s garage apart is not the number of cars or their enormous value. It is Leno’s determination to keep these machines alive, functional, and on the road. While many rare automobiles spend decades behind ropes or glass displays, Leno believes cars were built to move. He starts them, maintains them, and drives them as their original engineers intended.
That philosophy transforms his garage into something closer to a living museum. Every engine startup brings the past to life in ways a static display cannot. Leno understands that a car’s story goes far beyond its appearance—to truly appreciate one, you have to experience how it behaves on the road. Some vehicles are smooth and refined, while others demand patience, strength, and constant attention.
Even the flaws become part of their character. Keeping such a diverse collection running takes tremendous effort. Many vehicles rely on components that have not been produced for decades, so mechanics end up repairing original pieces or reproducing parts from scratch. Leno works with skilled technicians, fabricators, machinists, and specialists who understand that preservation sometimes means rebuilding what can no longer be purchased.
By sharing these machines through videos and public appearances, Leno allows millions of enthusiasts to experience vehicles they might never meet face to face. Viewers can hear the engines, watch the controls working, and understand why certain designs mattered. In Leno’s world, automotive history isn’t just stored. It is driven, lived through, and kept alive.
The collection challenges us to see beyond the surface and appreciate these machines as living history.