Jay Leno hospitalised with 'serious burns' from petrol fire in his garage
No, it wasn’t his Tesla
The American comedian and car collector Jay Leno has been hospitalised after suffering “serious burns” while working on a vehicle at his garage in California.
Leno, 72, sustained burns to his face on Saturday as a result of a petrol fire and was rushed to the Grossman Burn Centre in Los Angeles where he remains.
“I got some serious burns from a gasoline fire. I am ok. Just need a week or two to get back on my feet,” Leno, a sometime contributor to Sunday Times Driving (see below), told Variety magazine in a statement.
One of his employees, George Swift, told a reporter from Access Hollywood that Leno had been working on a steam car at the time of the incident and he been “sprayed by some gas and it had ignited”.
Many old-fashioned steam-powered cars (of which Leno owns several) rely on petrol or kerosene to run their boilers. The method of starting a 1909 White Model M steam car was explained in the Jay Leno’s Garage episode below.
Swift said that Leno had not lost consciousness, that his injuries were “nothing life-threatening” and that he was “in good spirits”.
The former host of The Tonight Show, one of the premier late-night talk shows in the United States, had been scheduled to appear at a conference in Las Vegas on Sunday but organisers informed attendees that Leno would not make it due to a “serious medical emergency”.
“His family was not able to provide us very many details, but there was a very serious medical emergency that is preventing Jay from traveling,” read an email to attendees of the Financial Brand Forum — the conference at which Leno had been due to be in attendance.
“All we know is that he is alive, so our prayers go out to him and his family tonight.”
Leno departed The Tonight Show in 2014 and has since become better known as a collector of classic cars and host of the TV and web series Jay Leno’s Garage.
While his tenure as host of The Tonight Show brought him nationwide fame in the US, in automotive communities, Leno has long been renowned as an avid collector of rare and unusual classic vehicles.
At present, he is estimated to own around 180 cars and 160 motorcycles, all of which are housed in a former aircraft factory in Burbank near Los Angeles.
Leno’s car collection is wildly diverse ranging from early twentieth-century electric cars to a modern-day Teslas and includes several vintage Bugatti models, a jet-powered motorcycle, two fire engines, an exceptionally rare turbine-powered Chrysler prototype (one of nine still in existence) and even a humble 2011 Tata Nano.
His favourite vehicle in his collection, he has said, is his 1972 Mercedes 600 to which he added a supercharger on account of its considerable weight.
As far as companies go, Leno says he has a particular fondness for McLarens, though as for marques and eras, so large and heterogeneous is the collection that none is especially over-represented compared to others.
Rather than contracting the maintenance of his fleet out to independent workshops, Leno employs a team of mechanics and coachbuilders to look after his cars.
Leno’s most recent incident isn’t the first time that the comedian has been involved in a serious accident involving a car.
In 2016 while filming an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage (then airing on the CNBC network in the US) Leno was involved in a crash after a 2,500bhp drag racer in which he was a passenger flipped over during a test run at California’s Irwindale Speedway.
“Well that was certainly exciting,” Leno, unhurt after the crash, said at the time. “It doesn’t get more exciting than that.”
Jay Leno’s car reviews for Sunday Times Driving
Jay Leno has written many times about cars for The Sunday Times, including providing road tests for Driving. Here are some of his major reviews:
Chevrolet Corvette C6 (2005)
Headline: Hey, it’s the supercar you can fix with a hammer
He said: “I’m glad the Corvette is coming to the UK. Apart from not being right-hand drive, which is a tremendous disadvantage, it’s value for money. I don’t think there’s anything in Britain that can equal it for the price.”
Read the full review at thetimes.co.uk
Jaguar XK120 on the Mille Miglia (2014)
Headline: Si, ignore the pretty girls and run all the red lights
He said: “Jaguar told me: ‘Here’s the car you’ll be driving. This is a Le Mans car; it ran in ’51 so it has a lot of heritage. It’s worth $3m. Oh, and you’ll be driving in the dark.'”
Read the full feature at thetimes.co.uk
Lexus LFA Spyder (2012)
Headline: It’s not every samurai you take to Sainsbury’s
He said: “Downshifts create the most incredible sound you’ve heard. I think you have to drive a number of supercars to appreciate this because it’s like box wine and fine wine, such is the huge difference between the LFA and the rest.”
Read the full review at thetimes.co.uk
McLaren P1 world exclusive (2013)
Headline: Aw shucks, guys, I thought I already had enough McLarens
He said: “The first thing you notice about the P1 is that it drives like a 12C on steroids. Everything is pumped up. The sound especially. In the P1 you’ve got bigger turbochargers, so the wastegates pop off, which I rather like. Pachow! Pachow!”
Read the full review and watch the video at thetimes.co.uk
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