Welcome to a very special edition of Jay Leno's Garage. The car we're featuring today, 1967 Corvette. This is a one-owner car. The original owner is here today. We're going to meet him. The car is famous as well because it's original and also because the owner was the 46th president of the United States. Please welcome Joe Biden.
Doing well. She's looking beautiful. We're going to take it out today with your permission and uh.
Absolutely. Hopefully, you'll drive with me and uh, we'll see what she does. You get a chance to play with us a little bit now?
Well, a little bit, but I still have Secret Service with me, so when I drive, they got to be in the car. Yeah.
Although, they all draw straws who doesn't have to get in the car with me.
So, tell us a story on this car. You're the original owner.
My dad used to run an automobile dealership and uh, my deceased wife, she was from Skaneateles, New York. And uh, my dad wanted to get something special for the wedding. And so she had a Tempest and I had an old Chevy. He said, "Bring them over to the dealership and we'll fix them up for you." And so a week before the wedding when she was up in Scranton in New York where we got married. And we went over to get it and all of a sudden the whole staff from the entire organization pulled aside and this was sitting there and he said, "This your wedding gift."
Wow. And so, and my dad didn't have the money to buy this, but he could make the monthly payments, right?
And so, this was my wedding gift. I've had it since then. It's been.
There's still only two payments left, right?
What were the payments? What was it? Probably like $35 a month.
Well, I don't know what it was, but I still have the sticker price on the window and.
Yeah, it certainly was. And you've had it all these years. I mean.
All these years. Now, we last drove this car about 10 years ago.
I owe you big. You realize it's only the third time I'm getting to drive this in seven years.
That's right. Third time.
Sounds good.
Try your brakes.
When you were vice president and Colin Powell showed up in his Corvette, remember you got.
He had a new Corvette with about 50 more horsepower.
Right. Right.
Wonder who that cowboy is.
It's a good looking car. The only bad thing about driving an older Corvette, there's always some show-off in a new Corvette trying to blow your doors up. But the question is, can you drive?
Remember, he's got better brakes than you.
I know. He got better everything than I do.
Look who it is.
Where were you? I kept looking in the mirror. I just wonder who the hell that cowboy was in front of me.
Show up. And that was kind of fun. We had a good time. He was quite a guy, wasn't he?
Really decent guy. I remember you standing out there on that old runway where the Secret Service uses for practice with your flag. And I got out of the hole and I was tailfishing. Yeah. And he went, "Whoa."
He didn't want to screw around.
I was in the car with you and he burned the rubber and fist the secret services. I mean it looked like one of those Keystone cops like that jump and they sent somebody out there. It was so much fun. We were down at the proving grounds.
That's right. It was a secret service practice area.
Yeah, the old runway. And you were burning rubber and speed shifting and it was a lot of fun. And uh, but they'll probably chase us again today, but that's okay. So, but you asked me then, could you drive it? You're going to get to drive it?
Yeah. Yeah, I want to drive it. I think it'd be great fun. So, tell me. Okay. You become senator, all the things. Obviously, you put it away for a few years, correct?
Well, I kind of had to put it in my garage. Yeah.
Right. Okay. But you just always wanted to keep it, right? You didn't.
Oh, yeah. I'm not, I didn't want to sell it. And uh, I live out semi-country and I have a long driveway and every once in a while I get so frustrated, the Secret Service not crazy about it. I'll pull it out of the garage, get to the bottom of the drive. It's about a quarter mile drive and I crank it up and lay rubber just to get the feel of it again.
Officer just to get the feel of it. Of course, that's great. And you got the proper gearbox. You got the four-speed, which I love 'cause a lot of guys might have gotten the automatic 'cause it's, you know, I don't know why, but I don't know why you would. But.
Yeah, and to me, this is still the best looking Corvette this year, '67, 'cause the last of the C2 bodies have changed in '68.
Yeah. I really thought this was a good looking car.
I did too. I still do. It has so many memories. Well, we're going to take her for a spin and see how she goes.
All right. You going to drive it?
I'm going to drive. You ready to go?
I'm ready to go.
Man, looking good inside, too, man.
It does. It does. Two old guys getting in a Corvette.
Whoa. Sounds healthy. Whoa.
I was so excited when I got this thing. That was great. I had no idea it was coming.
See what a tune-up does wonders for this thing. Whenever I drive an American car, I have my American-made watch. I was going to say it's amazing.
Oh, look at that. Now, see you have the Jay Leno watch. That's a great watch, too. As a watchmaker in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, Lancaster, and he handmakes all these watches. And you know, America at one point was the watchmaking capital of the world. Waltham, all of them. And they were the best watches in the world because they were the railroad watches. You know, when there was an accident like 1890 where two trains hit head-on and they realized there was no way for a conductor in Cincinnati to have the same time as a conductor in Cleveland because the sun would be in. So they got 12 noon at different times in each watches. So the government mandated that all watches had to be to a railroad standard and consequently American watches became the best of the world and the Swiss copied the Americans.
I did not know that.
Oh yeah. And then eventually just through lobbying a lot of other things, the Swiss managed to kind of overtake the whole industry.
By the way, I'm a civilian ridden the railroad more than any paid railroad. I've ridden over a total of 1,800,000 miles on that track.
Wow. Secret Service understandably doesn't like you riding a train.
And uh, so what happened was I'm down in a station in Washington. Right. About to go home and see my mom who was very sick at my home in Delaware and I have about, I don't know, there must be a total of 30 agents standing around me and a conductor walks up in the middle, grabs my cheek. I thought they were going to shoot him. He said, "Joey." He said, "What's all this about you riding 100,000 miles on Air Force planes? Do you realize how many miles you've ridden on Amtrak?" They said, "We calculated it." You as a senator for 36 years for you was a total of 298 miles a day. You averaged 22 trips a year. 36 years times that. And that's not counting VP. You've traveled 1,200,000 miles already. I don't hear any more of this about Air Force 2.
My father never let me get a motorcycle.
Now you know what president had a motorcycle? Reagan.
Yeah. You go, Jay. Jay, I had an Indian. Did you ever have an Indian? Jay, I Yes, Mr. President. I did. We talked about that. He had one of the greatest lines. He said to me, Jay, were you a good student? I said, no, Mr. President, I'm lic. He goes, you know, and every day I kick myself thinking how much further I could have gone if I just applied myself and I just thought that was the greatest line ever. I mean you're president of the United States. Where do you want to go? Killed me.
I wish you got to know my son Bo. I.
Yeah, I would have liked that. I would have liked.
You know, he called me one day. He said, "Dad, where are you Friday afternoon?" He said, "Where do you want me to be?" He said, "I want you to pin my bars on." Said, "Pin your bars on." Said, "Bo, you're a sitting attorney general of the state of Delaware. I want you to run for the governor and you join the National Guard." He said, "Yeah, Dad." I said, "You know, Bo, you're either federal property or state property." Look, Dad. He said, "85% of everyone in Iraq is National Guard and they're mostly Delawareans. How can I be home? I'm 41 years old."
How can I be home? And uh, and he won the Bronze Star, the Conspicuous Service Medal. A major in the United States military. We were going home one night. It's toward the end. We knew we had no chance of him living. He's getting toward the very end and he could still walk. He was home and Jill and I wanted from Washington. We took the Friday train and went to Bo's house. So after dinner, Jill said, "I'm going to go home and change." And Bo said, "Can you stick them out of the house?" I said, "Sure." He turned to his wife and said, "Can you take the kids outside for the pool?" He said, "Dad," he said, "I know what you're going to do." Dad, I'm not afraid of dying. I'm going to be okay. I know I'm going to die. I'm all right. He said, "But Dad, I know what you're going to do. You're going to quit when I die." I said, "Bo," he said, "Dad, look at me." And his biceps like, "Look at me, Dad. So I'm looking." Said, "God damn it, don't look at me, Dad." I said, "Give me your word as a Biden. You will not quit when I die. Give me your word." I said, "Bo," he said, "Dad, give me your word. God damn it." So, I give you my word, Bo. I will not quit 'cause I planned on quitting when he died. And uh, so that's why I wrote that book, Promise Me, Dad, right? 'Cause I wanted his kids and his grandkids.
Well, I remember. Do you remember you came out to see me?
Right before you ran and we talked about. I think you were afraid that people would try to use Bo's death.
As accuse you of being, you know, capitalizing for votes and that nonsense.
I remember telling you how ridiculous I thought that was because I remember saying I don't know anybody that capitalized on something like that. But.
I just thought it was an interesting moment and I'm glad you did the right thing.
Yeah. You know, to me, I was always a car guy and I was always the designated driver. So I knew so I couldn't drink. So but you know, it never had any interest in me. I never got the whole thing. I could be a jerk without drinking. So I didn't really need to drink. Knew me both. I had the bad reputation when I was in grade school, high school, and college of being a daredevil.
And uh, I look back on it, thank God I didn't drink some of the stuff I did.
Yeah. What kind of daredevil stunts?
Well, as a kid, for example, we lived up in Scranton and there was a Marywood College. There was a 15-foot stone wall that went around Marywood and I was one of the only guys that climbed the wall, ran the wall and then go up over the steel over the entrance. You know, that kind of stuff on your life, you know. I went to one of those old schools that were three stories and they had the big window had open with the rod and they slid out so you had a huge opening. Yeah. So, we're always on the third floor and whenever we have a substitute, I would get my friend's boots and when I heard the teacher coming, I would hold them out the window and then I'd go, I'm trying to hold on like I'd let go of the boots and then she and my friend would already be lying on the ground, you know, outside the window and she goes, "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD." AND THEN run down and get the principal. Then the principal would come up and my friend would be sitting in the seat and we'd all be sitting there and she'd realize that we played a trick on you. You're stupid.
Look at this. Isn't this crazy? It's just amazing. I mean, you're in the middle of LA.
Well, see, you come from that era where if a politician drove a foreign car, what's the matter with you?
Oh, by the way, not a shot.
Not a shot at driving a foreign car. Period. Zero. None. I think another one of the great things about you being president was this area right here.
If you hadn't been elected, this would probably all be construction and mini marts and all kinds of stuff. But it's now national land. So people in California, the most dense, one of the most dense states in the union, there's this open area where people can travel and just enjoy the fresh air. But you know, you another two miles, you can't even see a house or a building. You're in the middle of the wilderness in one of the busiest cities in the United States.
And how many acres did you guys actually save? Land and water 674 million acres.
And uh, this entire area we're going through here that can't be developed.
Yeah. I think that's great. And uh, you got to say something for future generations. I went down to Colorado River. I went down to Snake River. Went out I took my family there. I wanted them to see it. We went down on six-day rides down to Colorado. I will never forget the first time I stood with my family, my kids, the Grand Canyon. I looked out, I said, "This is God's cathedral. It's a cathedral."
It's incredible. The idea that we wouldn't preserve this for our children to have the same opportunity we have.
Well, I'm glad you did. Well, the other thing I was able to do, I made sure there could be no oil drilling off the east coast, the west coast, and 150 miles off the Gulf of Mexico. He's doing it with all that protection, too. No more windmills.
Because they kill birds. Yeah, I had a.
Give me a sign. You know when I did then when I wrote I worked like hell to get the infrastructure bill and no one thought I could get past over a trillion dollars. How can we need the world to renewable the leading infrastructure in the world?
Ports, bridges, roads and end that for billions of dollars for renewable energy. It has billions of dollars in there to make sure that there's enough electric stations all along every new highway built. But he's getting rid of all that, too. You know, the single biggest producer of energy in Texas, wind. Yeah.
Wind. He's trying to get rid of that, too.
Almighty. Oh, it's incredible out here.
You're still in Los Angeles. Look at this.
