Jay Leno’s Garage is a series of YouTube videos the former Tonight Show host has created to bring his massive car collection to his Internet audience. The collection ranges from the most exotic and expensive classics—Deusenbergs, Ferraris, Rolls- Royces—to pristine examples of low-end economy cars that we wonder why anyone would ever buy—the AMC Pacer, the Chevy Nova and, billed as the cheapest car in the Garage, the lowly 1937 Fiat Tempolino.
The show is addictive. Leno, dressed unassumingly in blue jeans and a denim shirt, demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge of details related to every vehicle. So, when I saw that he owned a Rolls-Royce chassis reengined with a 12-cylinder Merlin aircraft engine, I had to watch. It was well worth the view.
Leno is well schooled on aircraft engines and considers the Merlin to be the engine that won World War II. It powered the likes of the British Spitfire, Hurricane, and Mosquito (which had two), as well as the U.S.’s game-changing P-51 Mustang, which had the range and performance to escort bombers to Berlin and outfight the best of Germany’s defensive fighters, including the first jets to fly in combat.
There have been several cars converted to Merlin power, mostly in the UK. Leno actually has two—the Rolls and a Bentley—as well as a rack-mounted Merlin that can be started and run for demonstration purposes. He has done videos on all three, and his fascination with aircraft engines shows.
This one will get you started, but fair warning: Don’t fire your computer up unless you have a fair amount of time on your hands. You’ll probably find videos on dream cars you’d long forgotten about, and one or two from the nightmares you had to live with.
