On Jay Leno’s Garage, there’s apparently a recurring segment where the prolific car collector puts blindfolds on his fellow showbiz car guy friends and makes them guess what car they’re riding in. In a recent clip Tim Allen, star and creator of the 90s sitcom Home Improvement, is Leno’s latest victim.
Honestly, we had our doubts that Allen would’ve been able to identify a Cosmo Sport, and even after watching the clip we’re still not entirely convinced that this wasn’t rigged in some way. Allen’s a car guy, but a muscle car guy. However, if he really did guess it then props to him. Just don’t let him handle it in any way. Remember the time he had the world’s smallest car, built by Denso, on his show?
I always thought he was just a muscle car guy too.
I don’t know how much rigging there was, Tim went Japanese because of the fender mirror and right hand drive, then identified the rotary sound. What else is Japanese and rotary? All he said was “the Mazda”. Seems reasonable.
Now, guessing French because of the Citroen’s seat adjustments does tick my BS Meter, but if true I’m impressed.
Allen has a decent mix of European cars in his collection (SWB 911, E9, E-Type, 330GTC, and even a Ford RS200, among others) but I don’t know if he has or ever had any Japanese cars. I can tell you from personal experience that his general knowledge of classic cars really is pretty broad (I sold him a few diecast model Can Am racers many years ago) so it wouldn’t surprise me if he really could identify these cars on touch/sound alone.
“BRRAP” will always out.
To be fair he just said Mazda, not Cosmo. Even so, I didn’t think he’d get it.
He’ knows it’s RHD and he knows it’s Jay Leno’s. If he knows Jay well, then he knows that the cosmo is one of Jay’s favorites so it might not be the hardest guess in the world?