Listening to Jay Leno today, you might forget he made his career in comedy.
The late-night legend hosts a popular YouTube channel, Jay Leno’s Garage, as a sort of retirement career. Aside from his affable and experienced interviewing style, one may not suspect he reigned over late-night television for over two decades. Dressed in his trademark denim, he expounds on the minutiae of auto history, revealing an astounding depth of knowledge about everything from the specifics of a mid-century Citroen carburetor to the biography of some long-forgotten auto builder. The uninformed would be forgiven for thinking he was a simple mechanic who made good.
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And that’s kind of what he is. After working at car dealerships as a youth, Leno made a career as a comedian, in part, it appears, to support a voracious appetite for automobiles of all types (except Ferrari — more on that later). It’s not that he can’t afford a Ferrari. After 22 years of hosting the Tonight Show, where he reportedly earned as much as $30 million annually, he certainly could. Leno invested his earnings wisely, funding his lifestyle by performing up to 150 stand-up shows yearly and stashing nearly all his late-night salary. But there was one arena in which he didn’t mind spending money: cars and motorcycles.
After leaving the Tonight Show in 2014, Leno dedicated himself to sharing his passion with the world. With over 180 cars and 160 motorcycles, his collection is tantamount to a world-class auto museum, and he invites nearly four million YouTube subscribers to explore the curiosities and classics he has accrued each week on Jay Leno’s Garage.
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What The Cameras Didn’t Show Us About Jay Leno’s Garage
