Jay Leno is a national treasure. During his long and successful career in show business, he managed to invest some of the money he earned in his true passion, motor vehicles.
Most people know Jay Leno’s Garage YouTube channel from the cars he showcases on it. But he’s just as enthusiastic about motorcycles as he is about cars. Over the years he built a large, carefully curated collection of cars and motorcycles that he preserves in his famous garage in Burbank, California, and uses YouTube as an outlet to share his prized collection with aficionados from all over the world. His collection, as big as it is, is still finite, and Jay Leno often features other exotic cars and motorcycles from guests. Today we’re going to have a peek at a few of the amazing motorcycles he has in his private collection.
Egli-Vincent Café Racer By Patrick Godet
The Egli-Vincent is an improved version of the original Vincent Black Shadow that was produced from 1948 to 1955. With its 998 cc V-twin engine, the Black Shadow was the fastest bike of its time. A Swiss machinist and motorcyclist named Fritz Egli built an entirely new frame for the Black Shadow that was stiffer and better performing overall. Along came Patrick Godet, a Vincent enthusiast who met Egli in the early 2000s. He showed one of his modified Vincent Café Racers to Egli, who was very impressed with Godet’s work. They soon became friends and Egli allowed Godet the rights to reproduce his now classic Vincent chassis. Godet increased the engine displacement to 1,330 cc, added dual Mikuni carburetors, as well as some other tweaks to get 100 horsepower from the engine.
1974 Norton John Player Special
This particular motorcycle was bought brand new by Jay Leno and has been under his ownership for more than 45 years. The bike cost $3,000 back in 1974, which was a lot of money back then. John Player Special, which was a cigarette brand from England that sponsored the works team, was the top of the line model. The bike had a unique look, with big fairings that pushed the boundaries of how fairings were used in motorcycles back then, and twin headlights, which didn’t sit well with everyone in terms of looks.
The engine was a classic British parallel-twin with 828 cc and 60 horsepower @6,200 rpm that was rubber mounted to lessen vibrations transferred to the rider. Jay Leno’s Norton was built before September 1974, and it had the usual Norton setup with the rear brake pedal on the left and the shifter on the right, along with the kick-starter. After September 1974, all motorcycles meant for the US market had to adhere to the conventional setup of rear brakes on the right pedal and shifter on the left.
1975 Suzuki RE5
The engine on this particular motorcycle was based on the original design of the Wankel, a.k.a. the rotary engine which was developed after WWII. The rotary engine was coveted in the 70s because it looked like the future and one of its advantages, aside from more power per unit of displacement was how smooth and vibrations-free it was.
Of course, the design had some inherent flaws that eventually steered most manufacturers away from it, but regardless, a motorcycle with a rotary engine is something truly special and unique. The bike received great reviews when it was released, but the conservative customer base thought it was too high-tech for their usual taste and the bike wasn’t exactly flying out of showrooms. It had a 497 cc liquid-cooled single-rotor engine and a claimed 62 horsepower.
1929 Scott Flying Squirrel
Another gem Jay Leno has in his garage is this motorcycle made by the Scott Motorcycle Company. It has a 596cc parallel-twin, two-stroke, water-cooled engine, which was very innovative way back in the 20s. The cooling system worked based on simple physics principles, without the need for a water pump.
What happened was that the engine would heat the water, making the hot water push the cold water through the radiator and the water would keep recirculating this way. The cooling would work best if the bike was moving and the radiator was getting some air to cool the water going through it. This bike is actually a race replica of the one that came in third at the Isle of Man race and doesn’t have headlights, turn signals, or even a brake light.
1930 Indian Chief Motorcycle
Now this one sounds familiar, quite literally. That American V-Twin sound of old arguably sound’s better than today’s big V-Twins from Harley-Davidson and Indian Motorcycles. Jay Leno has had this bike in his garage for more than 40 years. It was in bad shape, as it was once crashed, pulled together, ridden hard, and poorly maintained. It was a handful, but definitely worth it. This is a true hard tail with a spring seat and a manual gear lever. The engine on the original Chief was a 1,200 cc air-cooled, V-Twin. Jay Leno says the bike originally made somewhere between 40 and 45 horsepower, which was pretty powerful for the time. The bike weighed under 400 pounds and had the characteristic low-end torque of the classic American V-Twin engine, a blast to ride, and listen to. Leno fixed the mechanical bits of the bike but kept the beaten up look just like when he got it all those years ago.