When Jay Leno officially hung up his gloves as a late-night talk show host, the prevailing thought was it was only a matter of time before he ends up in front of the cameras again.
Apparently, the return was sooner than most of us thought. Leno is scheduled to debut a one-hour prime-time show, which is predictably called, ‘The Jay Leno Show’, and being a true pistonhead, Leno is pitching to include an auto-racing event as one of his key segments.
While the format for this segment seems familiar – Leno actually copied it from Top Gear’s ‘Reasonably-Priced Car Challenge’ from which, ironically, he was one of the guest drivers – the ex-late night host is adding his own personal twist into this segment.
He’s calling it the “Green Car Challenge”, which will have celebrities racing around a specially-designed track inside the NBC compound in a – you guessed it – environmentally-friendly car.
Hold on to your horses; Michael Schumacher’s return to Formula One is still not set in stone – at least not yet.
While the entire sporting world is waiting in breathless anticipation for the 7-time World Champion’s return to Formula One, there’s one thing that could potentially derail all of that: Schumi’s neck.
Not a lot of people know that before the German decided to fill the seat vacated by the injured Felipe Massa, he sustained an injured neck while testing a German Superbike last February.
As a result of the accident, Schumacher had to be hospitalized for a few days and it was more than three months later before he saddled back up on a racing bike. While it seems like the injury occurred ages ago, Schumacher still has to get clearance from a group of doctors that will perform a series of intense training and medical checks.
Jay Leno isn’t used to being the guest in a show, but that’s where he found himself when he was invited by Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson in a sit-down between two of the world’s biggest ‘petrol heads’.
Leno, a self-admitted Top Gear fanatic, joined Clarkson at the top-rated car-themed talk show to discuss a variety of topics only the truest of car fanatics could understand.
During Leno’s stint on the show, Clarkson playfully ran-down the list of vehicles owned by the American ex-talk show host. Predictably, the list ran long – 3 pages worth, to be in fact – with Leno defending his obvious fanaticism towards cars by saying. “I’d rather go home smelling of greasy fluid than of cheap perfume”
When Michael Jackson died, the whole world predictably mourned. News of the King of Pop’s untimely death has also resulted in thousands of tributes from his fans all over the world. One such fan, 18-year old Eric Callisto, paid his respects in a very unconventional way.
The teenager from Indiana is commemorating the life and times of Jacko
by designing a Smart car. Callisto created a website where – for a $10 donation – fellow fans can have their names, businesses, or websites, put on the car.
It’s an unusual tribute even for Jackson’s standards, but Callisto says that the idea popped up after seeing the unprecedented grief Jackson’s fans sent out through Twitter. While we can’t fault Callisto for his intentions, it seems like an unusual tribute to a star known for being unconventional. Nevertheless, Callisto is still seeking the support from the Jackson family with the hopes of making his ‘tribute-designed’ Smart Car, the ‘official’ tribute car for Michael Jackson.
Unusual indeed.
In any case, if you’re a Michael Jackson fan and you feel that there’s still something you can do for your fallen idol, you can click on the website below and show your appreciation for the King of Pop by participating in Eric Callisto’s tribute car.
Top Speed previously reported that racing driver and television host Tiff Needell and popular English television star, John Barrowman had been involved in a car accident in a rally prepped Subaru while filming a slot for the English automotive program Fifth Gear. Before we only had a few still images to show you, but today, Fifth Gear revealed the video of the crash.
UFC Fighter Dan Henderson recently found himself on the good side of a brand new Range Rover for becoming the winning coach during the recently concluded The Ultimate Fighter 10. Up against Michael ‘The Count’ Bisping – who coached Team UK opposite the Henderson-backed Team US – Henderson not only steered his team to victory, he also got the pleasure of knocking out Bisping at UFC 100. It seemed like Henderson couldn’t do anything wrong, that is, until he got behind the wheel of his Range Rover.
After his highlight-reel knockout of Bisping, Henderson was on his way back to his home in Temecula, California in his Range Rover when it inexplicably broke down right in the middle of the desert. That’s right. The Range Rover was barely a month old when it conked out.
We don’t know exactly the reason behind the Range Rover’s sudden malfunction but it must suck anyway to have it give out on you without even reaching four digits on the odometer. It’s a good thing Henderson has a sense of humor because after the untimely incident, he sent a message to White saying, “Thanks for the car, Dana. Hope it comes with a warranty!”
Nevertheless, Henderson was able to have the car fixed and was even spotted driving it to the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles. Let’s just hope that this time, he can go back to Temecula without having to call AAA again.
Sometimes accidents happen high performance machines are pushed to their limits. Recently such an incident occurred in England. A popular television star, John Barrowman, was filming a slot for the English automotive program Fifth Gear when he and co-driver Tiff Needell were involved in a very serious crash in which their rally prepped Subaru went end over end multiple times before paramedics pulled Barrowman and Needell out, and removed shattered glass from Barrowman’s eye before he was taken to hospital.
The £120,000 Impreza slid down a verge, flipped four times and almost went into a lake at the bottom of the hill, luckily both of the television stars survived the crash suffering only minor cuts and bruises.
Fiat 500C might be a small car, but the popular city car has some rather big admirers! One of them is the Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson. She loves the little 500 so much that Ms. Macpherson is already driving around a coupe version, but was recently spotted checking out what it would take to go topless with a 500C convertible.
"I love the Fiat 500C, it has that sexy, cool, Italian thing going on!” says the supermodel. “I like the way the car drives – it is perfect for cities with its small turning circle and the easy way it maneuvers through London."
The 500C has the same dimensions as the coupe version: 3.55 m x 1.65 m x 1.49 m and is also available with the same three engines as the hardtop. Those power plants consist of a 1.3 Liter Multijet turbodiesel making 75 HP, a 1.2 Liter gas burning unit producing 69 HP and the top of the line 100 HP 1.4 Liter gasoline engine.
It is no secret that Jay Leno rides amongst a distinct group of automotive enthusiasts who is privileged enough to experience some of the best vehicles in the world. It appears that when the late night television comedian stopped by to unveil the latest generation Jaguar XJ luxury limousine that the self proclaimed president of the more money than brains club decided that he wanted to try out the company’s latest high performance sedan, the Jaguar XF-R.
It is only fitting that Jay, being such a gear head, persuaded the Jaguar PR folks to let him get behind the wheel of a 2010 XF-R powered by a supercharged 5.0 Liter V8 making an astonishing 510 HP. Now Mr. Leno is no stranger to big horsepower numbers, his turbocharged tank car is evidence enough of that, but it could be the added luxury and comfort that come along with high performance machine that the late night host was really eager to experience. That is one of the benefits of being a world renowned celebrity, all Jay had to do was spend a little time entertaining the XJ crowd and then he got to enjoy the XF-R all he wanted, and we thought our jobs were good.
We all know that Jay Leno loves his cars. After all, he probably has enough cars – modern and vintage – to make his own showroom. But despite owning a fleet of some of the most expensive and prestigious vehicles in the world, we still don’t know as to how much of a car fanatic Jay Leno is. That’s until we found out that our favorite ex-late night talk show host has his own 3D scanner, which he uses to scan and print rare and irreplaceable car parts from his vintage classics. Now, that’s something you’ve never heard before.
Leno’s revolutionary gadget is a NextEngine 3D Scanner, which can scan a fully-functioning auto part in 20 minutes at 160,000 dots per inch resolution. After doing so, he takes his scanned image and prints it into a plastic 3D model using his Dimension 3D Printer. While the resulting part isn’t the final piece of the exercise – he takes the plastic, which can be scanned and printed in three hours, and uses it to make a mold that will eventually produce the metal, which he uses on the car.
We know a lot of car aficionados the world over that would go to great lengths to restore their precious vehicles, but we’ve never seen anyone that has an device that can actually make a 3D image of a vintage car part. But that’s why Jay Leno is who he is.
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