When Jay Leno talks about his personal favorite cars, we listen because not only is his garage bigger than about 99 percent of everyone’s homes, but he was once described as the world’s finest connoisseur of denim and cars.
The Drive stopped by Jay Leno’s garage to find out about his favorite American classic muscle cars currently sitting in his mythically vast collection.
Leno started with a 1966 Dodge Coronet, one of Chrysler’s earliest tries in the muscle car world. He then moved on to the 1971 Dodge Challenger Hemi which currently sits next to its modern successor, the Dodge Challenger Hellcat.
It’s only then where it starts to get crazy, as Jay shows his restomodded Buick Roadmaster, a car that he left sitting on his mother-in-law’s driveway for 16 years before bringing it back to his garage and installing the first crate 572 engine (9.4 liters!) GM made under the hood. The chassis also gained an independent suspension setup sourced from a Corvette and the necessary disc brakes to help this old beast stop safely. After all it has 650hp!
Next in line is the Ford Galaxie 500 7-litre, a car that Leno has very fond memories of as his father used to own one. Last but not least is an Oldsmobile Toronado that may look like a stock example but Jay and his crew did wonders under the skin. The whole car was converted from FWD to RWD, features a unique chassis with all-independent suspension while under the bonnet now lives a 7.0-litre racing engine with twin turbos and methanol/water injection, good enough for over 1,000hp.
Now, which body part should we give just to take for a spin that Roadmaster?