Jay Leno's garage ...

jay leno garage

Steve Lehto saw eight or nine mechanics on duty two Saturdays ago when he visited Jay Leno's garage.

They're experts on an astonishing array of cars, but none of them knew diddley-squat about turbines, so Leno took an extra step after he bought one of the nine existing Chrysler Turbines from the company.

Lehto had become Leno's go-to guy on the Turbine, first because he sent the comedian an unpublished manuscript about the vehicle and then because he passed along a rare service manual. Lehto mentioned at some point that he knew the original chief technician on the project, suburban Detroiter Bill Carry.

That struck Leno as having possibilities. "I called Bill," Lehto says, "and told him a friend of mine was going to call and ask him about the car. I didn't say who."

In short order, Carry called Lehto back: "He's flying my wife and me out to California so I can be there when the

car rolls off the trailer."

Everything in Leno's robust collection of motorcycles and antique and classic cars is drivable, and he wanted to make sure the '63 Turbine was shipshape. It was indeed, and Lehto says it was the experience of a lifetime to visit Leno two Saturdays ago, drive the Turbine and basically hang out all day.

Among the things he discovered in Burbank:

... Leno's fabled garage is actually a huge, multi-building facility. It looked to Lehto as though you could not only eat off the floors, you could conduct brain surgery afterward.

... Leno is even nicer than you would think -- and this is a guy who came to Detroit on his own time and dime to perform two shows for out-of-work Michiganders.

... You can pick up a part and ask, "What's this," and Leno can immediately tell you it's a veeblefetzer from a 1927 Stutz Bearcat.

... He had 105 cars up and running and another few dozen in various stages of repair. We're talking muscle cars, a 1,000-horsepower Olds Toronado, Duesenbergs and Packards, all sitting with the key on the dashboard ready to be driven.

... When Jay Leno drives through Burbank in a Chrysler Turbine or a 1907 White steamer, people notice. He was unfailingly gracious, Lehto says, about waving, posing, and ringing the bell on the White.

... Heading back from the drive in the Turbine, Leno asked Lehto and photographer Cliff Gromer of Mopar Action magazine, "Hey, you guys had lunch yet?" They hadn't, so he dialed the garage. Turns out one corner of one of the buildings is a fully stocked kitchen, and there's a monstrous grill on which someone made ribs and chicken for the mechanics and the guests.

... Leno set the table.