Behind the scenes at Jay Leno’s garage, there are a number of projects in various states of completion. In the famous gearhead’s latest update about what’s going on in the shop, he spills the details about his own personal spill on his Indian motorcycle. He also tells us about other restoration projects on his Tank Car, his 1963 Split-Window Corvette, and his Ariel Atom.
Back at the end of January when the crash happened, we knew that it was on an Indian and that Leno broke a number of bones. We also knew that it happened as a result of Leno hitting a wire that caused him to crash. Now, we’re learning about the incident from the man himself.
Leno says that he was on his 1940 Indian Chief with its attached sidecar. The wire actually hit him in the neck as it knocked him off of the bike. Being a sidecar, “the motorcycle just kept going and crashed into a building,” Leno says. As we see in the video, the front wheel is long gone and the front of the sidecar itself needs repairs too.
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Leno plans to add a new set of forks and mend the other associated issues before getting back on the bike. “Luckily, I’m only 72… had I been an older man, this could’ve been a serious accident,” he says. As he recovers, he and the team are continuing to work hard on other projects.
The famous Tank Car with its M47 Patton tank engine turns out to be too big and powerful for its own good. The engine, which weighs “closer to four-thousand pounds,” according to Leno, had literally cracked the chassis. As a part of that failure, other panels had gone out of line and the shop needed to add structural supports to get everything back in line.
Leno’s also in the midst of rebuilding the engine in his 1963 Chevrolet Corvette. He says that it’s been running only okay since he bought it and by adding new rods and pistons he hopes to have it back to its original condition with a smoother engine soon. One car that’s not got its original engine anymore is his Ariel Atom.
The lightweight sports car originally came with a Chevrolet Cobalt four-cylinder. Leno says that sometime after he bought it the ECU failed and as a result, he decided to drop a new engine into the chassis. That engine is a completely bespoke 3-liter V8 with Hayabusa heads and around 488 hp according to Leno. Hopefully, we get to see it on the road soon.