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Jay Leno

Comedian; Host, Jay Leno's Garage; former host, The Tonight Show, Jay Leno's Garage

Search every verified Jay Leno interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Jay Leno continued to produce and host episodes of his web series Jay Leno's Garage, featuring vehicles ranging from vintage Packards and Porsches to modern supercars and a Cirrus personal jet. In recurring segments with automotive appraiser Donald Osborne, he discussed the historical significance, driving characteristics, and market values of cars on loan from the Audrain Automobile Museum in Newport, Rhode Island. He also gave early looks at upcoming vehicles, including a naturally aspirated Hennessey supercar and a McLaren model inspired by Bruce McLaren's 1969 M6GT, and hosted guests such as Travis Barker, who showed his modified 1959 Chevrolet Impala. In interviews and podcast appearances, Leno spoke about comedy and the entertainment industry, saying he learned from Johnny Carson, that late-night television is declining, and that politics changed comedy. He discussed his ongoing stand-up work, his approach to writing jokes, and his views on tariffs and technology, including AI. He also commented on the appeal of mechanical cars compared to electric vehicles and described driving cars with manual gearboxes as central to the experience he enjoys.

Recent appearances

  • Jay Leno & Donald Osborne in Audrain Mansions & Motorcars: Aloha Landing, Season 8 Episode 2

    October 23, 2026 · 📺 Audrain Museum Network

    Our never-ending hunt for the tenuous connections between mansions and motorcars continues. In this episode, join Jay & Donald at Aloha Landing, where the road meets the water, and they explore Porsche's bathtub on wheels, a locally built runabout with maritime origins, and Ferrari's speedboat for the road. Buckle up and pedal down with the odd couple, it's Audrain Mansions & Motorcars. ABOUT THE CHANNEL: Founded in 2014 in Newport, Rhode Island with a mission of "Preserving, Celebrating & Sharing Automotive History," the Audrain Automobile Museum connects and engages our local and internati…

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  • First and Last | Assess and Caress With Donald Osborne | Jay Leno's Garage

    October 22, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    Packard from its first generation to its last. Donald Osborne brings two Packards to the Garage, one on loan from the ‪@AudrainMuseumNetwork‬ in Newport, Rhode Island: a 1902 Packard Model F, one of four known to exist, and Jay's personal 1956 Packard Caribbean convertible, from the last year of the true Detroit-built Packards. The story starts with a feud. James Ward Packard bought a Winton, complained to Alexander Winton, and was told to go build his own car. So he did. The Model F has a 3-liter, 12 hp single-cylinder engine, an H-pattern three-speed and a price tag that could have bought y…

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  • Jay Leno on Comedy, Supercars, and the State of Hollywood

    October 20, 2026 · 📺 TBPN

    This is our full interview with comedian and former Tonight Show host Jay Leno. We discuss what he learned from Johnny Carson, why he thinks late-night television is dying, how politics changed comedy, why he refuses to retire from stand-up, his advice for people afraid of AI, and what it takes to stay funny after decades in show business. TBPN is made possible by: Ramp - https://ramp.com Public - https://public.com Cisco - https://www.cisco.com Console - https://www.console.com CrowdStrike - https://www.crowdstrike.com Figma - https://www.figma.com MongoDB - https://www.mongodb.com NYSE - h…

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  • Sneak Peek: 2029 Hennessey Blackbird Jay Leno Has Known John Hennessey Since ‘93 | Jay Leno's Garage

    October 19, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    No turbos, no hybrid, no screens and a six-speed manual. Jay gets an early look at the Hennessey Blackbird. Jay first met John Hennessey in 1993, back when John was a Texas hot rodder bolting more speed onto Vipers. Since then he's built the Venom F5, which makes over 2,000 horsepower. For his next car he's gone the other way. The Blackbird runs a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter dual overhead cam V8, developed with Ilmor, that's targeted at 800 to 850 hp and revs past 9,000 rpm. It drives the rear wheels through a gated six-speed manual. Hennessey says it will be the most powerful naturally asp…

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  • Pick Your Flavor | Assess and Caress with Donald Osborne | Jay Leno's Garage

    October 15, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    Three Porsche 911 GT3 RS generations, one question: which one has the market fallen hardest for? Donald Osborne brings a 2008 997.1, a 2011 997.2 and a 2016 991.1 to the Garage, all on loan from the Audrain Automobile Museum in Newport, Rhode Island. The two 997s carry Hans Mezger's legendary engine and a manual gearbox. The 2016 switched to a 4.0-liter, 500 hp engine with PDK and would likely be the quickest around a track. Donald and Jay break down homologation specials, what makes the Mezger special, and whether collectors pay for speed or for the driving experience. Then Jay makes his pic…

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  • Travis Barker’s 1959 Impala Looks Stock Until You Floor It | Jay Leno's Garage

    October 12, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    Travis Barker's 1959 Impala looks like it rolled out of a time capsule. Then he puts his foot down. Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker brings his 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible to the garage, a one-year-only body that Jay remembers seeing new as a kid. It's a Texas car still wearing the paint it had when Travis bought it, finished black on black with a lift kit to lay it down, 14-inch Dayton wire wheels and a Continental kit that makes a long car look even longer. Under the hood, the original 348 is gone. In its place is an LS3 ("I think it's 495," Travis says) with Wilwood brakes, Vintage A…

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  • Jay Leno Headlines | The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

    October 10, 2026 · 📺 ScreenGems

    Excuse the quality! Please hit Like and subscribe. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno | Oct 2003 #jayleno #headlines #tonightshow #jaylenosgarage #jaylenoheadlines

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  • Analog or Digital | Assess and Caress with Donald Osborne | Jay Leno's Garage

    October 08, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    Analog or digital. Donald Osborne brings two very comfortable, very fast four-door sedans from two different eras to the Garage: a 1988 BMW M5 (E28) and a 2020 Mercedes-Maybach S560 4MATIC, both on loan from the Audrain Automobile Museum in Newport, Rhode Island. The M5 was built by BMW's Motorsport division in limited numbers, with a manual gearbox and four-wheel disc brakes, at a time when you couldn't get a big, comfortable sedan with a stick in America. Jay calls today's Cadillac Blackwing its spiritual successor, and Donald brings up the M5 rival almost nobody remembers: the Ferrari-powe…

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  • McLaren McL 6GT meets Bruce McLaren’s 1969 M6GT | Jay Leno's Garage

    October 05, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    Jay gets behind the wheel of Bruce McLaren's personal 1969 M6GT, the race car he built for the street, and gets a first look at the car it inspired: the McL 6GT, McLaren's first manual transmission car since the F1. In 1967 Bruce McLaren's orange M6A won five of six Can-Am races. His next idea was to put that car on the road. The M6GT was the result: a 5.7 liter Chevy 350 V8 making about 370 horsepower, a ZF transaxle, and a car that weighed around 800 kilos. It was a four second car in 1969. Bruce drove it to the races and to pick up groceries. He planned to build a few hundred. When he was…

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  • Ferrari 355 F1 vs 1981 Corvette: Which Is the Smarter Buy? | Jay Leno's Garage

    October 01, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    One is the first road car with a Formula One paddle shift. The other is a black C3 Corvette you can fix with a $79 water pump. Which one made the better buy over the last five years? On this Assess and Caress, Jay and Donald Osborne visit the Audrain Automobile Museum in Newport, Rhode Island, for a theme Donald calls "two-seat motoring, high and low": a 1997 Ferrari 355 F1 Berlinetta and a 1981 Chevrolet Corvette, both in black. The Pininfarina-styled 355 carries a 375 horsepower V8 with five valves per cylinder, but the story is the gearbox. Ferrari first raced electro-hydraulic paddle shi…

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  • Jay Leno Drives the 920HP Secret Le Mans Porsche Hypercar: RML P39! | Jay Leno's Garage

    September 14, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    What happens when an elite British motorsport engineering firm takes a Porsche 992 Turbo S and redesigns it into a modern Le Mans GT1 hypercar? You get the mind-bending RML P39 40SE! In this week's episode, Jay Leno welcomes Paul Dickinson, CEO of the legendary RML Group (imported to the U.S. exclusively through Graham Rahal Performance), to showcase their bespoke 40th Anniversary GT Hypercar. Known for decades as the "white label" engineering secret behind major OEM supercars and championship winning race cars, RML created the P39 to solve a dilemma: make a Porsche with more downforce and tr…

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  • Assess and Caress with Donald Osborne: Americana Through the Decades | Jay Leno's Garage

    September 10, 2026 · 📺 Jay Leno's Garage

    Which classic era of American steel actually gained value over the last five years? In this episode of Assess and Caress, Jay Leno teams up with automotive appraiser Donald Osborne, to evaluate three defining icons of American motoring shipped straight from the ‪@AudrainMuseumNetwork‬ in Newport, Rhode Island: 1940s: A mostly original 33,000-mile 1947 Buick Roadmaster sporting Harley Earl's landmark pre-war styling and a Fireball straight-eight engine. 1950s: A coral-and-charcoal 1956 DeSoto Fireflite Sportsman hardtop featuring Virgil Exner’s "Forward Look," push-button drive, and DeSoto’s…

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Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“It's interesting because I would think, well, Ferrari always holds a value. You know, there's no bargain Ferrari out there. But I thought you maybe had a trick up your sleeve with this thing because of uh I figure I'll go with Donald because he always has some trick thing. So I should have gone with my first instinct. But yeah, but to me buying a car that's old for 175,000 is much more of a risk than buying this for ”

“And I just it's just amazing. It's just really well done. And I think a lot of people are scared to to buy it cuz they don't know how they bought the right one. It's so expensive. We had a guy here the other day at a Hudson Hornet. He had $700,000 in it. And beautiful. But, you know, cars were built when technology was expensive and labor was cheap. Now it's the other way around. Technology is free, but labor is craz”

“When I was a kid, I thought these V12s were big. You know, I didn't really understand liters versus cubic inches. And then when I would do the math eventually, I go, 'God, that's not that big at all.' But extremely efficient for what they do. Um, you probably saw a replica of this in the Ferris Bueller Day Off movie. That was Yeah. Rolls into the out of the garage. Yeah. Which is crazy. But yeah, but this is that's k”

“Well, see, that's what I like. You come from that era when politicians use public transportation. A friend of mine said he saw you on a commercial flight one day and he goes, "Why are we on a commercial flight?" Well, you don't own a jet, correct? That's right. That's right. So, yeah. The whole public service thing you take seriously. Well, I did. I mean, I you know, it's their money and uh I don't you know, I wouldn”

“It's so easy to drive. You know, a lot of times when you build and you drive, not necessarily prototypes, but sometimes one or two all supercars, it's kind of a kit car feel to it. I don't get any of that here. None of that. So, it's all the details, the business sense, and the money. And very few people, a few people have one of those. Very few people have all three. So that's where Lucas and these guys are really q”

“I just wonder what happened to Nissan. Yes. Well, they had all the nightmare with the CEO going to prison and all that kind of stuff. He escaped in a musical box, right? Then he escaped. And I think he's just stuck in Lebanon, right? I think. Well, it's better than being stuck in prison. And he was in for a long time, right? No, I think he was just under house arrest and that's why he escaped. He turned around Nissan”

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →