Won’t You Adopt a Honda Too?
If you don’t know by now that comedian and late night talk show host Jay Leno is a car collector extraordinaire, then we hope the alien probing wasn’t too painful and welcome you back to planet Earth. The great thing about Leno is that he’s not just some rich guy who throws money at the latest horsepower-soaked auction queen to pad his collection. The man knows and loves machines, and works on everything he owns, from Stanley Steamer to Fiat Topolino.
His latest acquisition is a 1965 Honda SM600, which, under his care, promptly underwent a meticulous frame-off restoration with the help of Brian Baker of Formula H Motoworks. “If this had ‘Porsche’ written on it, it’d be worth $250,000, but because it’s Honda, for some reason they don’t get the respect they deserve,” spake His Chinliness. Word up, Mr. Leno. If you’ve never heard a Honda S-car revving to its 9,500rpm redline through a Flowmaster during a fly-by, you need to drop everything and watch this video on Jay Leno’s Garage. It’s absolute music.
Thanks to dear reader tkmedia for the tip.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
that sound. OH that sound!
i’m no expert, but it sounds an awful lot like the RA272 and RA273 F1 cars.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Beautiful, isn’t it? :)
You can hear more of the RA272 here.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
It was an honor to build Jay’s S600 engine for him! Four days start to finish! It’s a pleasure to hear Jim Hall say, “And it just works like a Swiss watch.” Thanks for the continued support, guys.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Hi Brian, sorry you missed out on the JCCS as a result. We have utmost faith in your abilities and if we ever put together that dream garage of ours, we know exactly who to contact for the S600 restoration!