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Jay Leno's 66 Hemi Coronet

Hemi option was $907.60.
Lots of money back then and is getting close to 8000 in today's money.

And Jay has some pretty cool cars and seems to know them pretty well. He almost stumped Kurt Busch with it....or either Kurt was following a script but he was totally stumped with the Mercedes even after a good clue lol
 
Gotta love Jay Leno the car guy. And what a sweet ride, first year for the regular production street Hemi.

It just doesn’t get much better than that.
 
A Nice Coronet. I owned a Red one with a 426 back in the day. Bench seat car.
 
I passed on a nice one of those in 1971 because the $900 cash price was out of my reach.
Later that year I was trying to get a 68 Hemi RR (with a knocking rod) for $1500.- Another guy showed up with cash and took the deal.
As it turned out I bought that exact same car a year later-(with a fresh rebuild on the engine) for $2500. It became my daily driver for 10 years and 75K miles.
I sold it for 17K in the mid-eighties as it was--never restored--only driven.:)
 
I passed on a nice one of those in 1971 because the $900 cash price was out of my reach.
Later that year I was trying to get a 68 Hemi RR (with a knocking rod) for $1500.- Another guy showed up with cash and took the deal.
As it turned out I bought that exact same car a year later-(with a fresh rebuild on the engine) for $2500. It became my daily driver for 10 years and 75K miles.
I sold it for 17K in the mid-eighties as it was--never restored--only driven.:)
I did a similar deal with a 71 340 Cuda. Went to look at it in 85 and passed on it but saved the ad and one day after cleaning out my desk a year later, found the ad and called. He still had the car! Got it cheaper and better and kept the car for over 15 years but dumb *** me sold it.....:(
 
Very nice car!! I'm sure like all of you, it gets me to thinking of all the cars that slipped through my fingers all those years ago that I said no thanks to. Thanks for sharing!!
 
Jay bought that car at Spring Fling back around 97.. My Challenger was parked two spaces away so I watched the deal happen... Very cool Coronet...
 
Cool ride, that & His Hemi Challenger

Seems he's not really a muscle car era collector
has a couple pony cars too
a few old racecars of that era
he's more of a steam & brass era or exotics collector
or 1 offs rare cars
 
He owns a 2002 35th anniversary Trans Am also, which strikes me as odd, too...
 
Jay is in the enviable position that he can buy whatever strikes his fancy... He seems to be an all around car enthusiast.... His Hemi Challenger was given to him by Garth Brooks....
 
Thing I like about Jay, he buys them, he keeps them, he has his guys improve them, he actually drives them... He doesn't sell them when the world fashion changes.... He's a true car guy.....

One year he showed up at Spring fling looking like he'd been on a three day bender... Turned out he'd. ridden his hydrogen peroxide powered rocket bike to the show.... It's always fun to see Jay popping in at the Spring Fling, seeing what he brought.... Steam power, electric, hydrogen peroxide... Leave it to Jay, it'll be cool....
 
Hydrogen peroxide?


I don't know exactly how it works, just that he was talking with a guy I know & he said he had ridden a hydrogen peroxide rocket bike... I knew/know they exist but as far as I'd ever known prior to that was that they are race only & not suited to normal riding...

I found this on the web...

"If you have a 90-percent concentration like that, hydrogen peroxide makes a great rocket propellant! ... The heat turns the water into steam, which the engine can eject at a very high speed through a rocket nozzle. Advertisement. Used in this way, hydrogen peroxide is a monopropellant."

Knowing his garages are only a mile from the show he could easily ride it out to the show & have his guys come load it up I suppose...

 
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