Driving Sports

Driving Sports photographer Yujiro Otsuki made the trek to Irvine, Calif., for the 4th annual Japanese Classics Car Show. There, he hooked up with Jay Leno, who was standing in front of a 1964 Honda SM600 from his personal collection (blue convertible in the gallery) for a brief interview.

Interview Transcript:

Driving Sports: What do you think of the Japanese classic car trend?

Jay Leno: Oh, I think it's exciting. You know these, when I was a kid, were all new cars. I remember them all being impressive... like this thing here, it had roll-up windows. This with 600 CC's made more power than the MG with 1100 and it was faster, you had a top, roll-up windows, things you take for granted now.  I have a Cosmo, that car had everything, it had air conditioning, 5-speed transmission, had the wood steering wheel, had the map light, all stuff that kids think are standard on cars now but were huge deals at the time. It's fine to see them finally get the respect, you know it takes about 30-40 years in America, because what we do, we buy something, we beat the hell out of it, we throw it away, and 30 years later - ouh oooh! We want one.  You go to England, you go to other countries and people keep the stuff because cars are not cheap, here cars are pretty cheap compared... so you can buy them and throw them away in other countries they do tend to save them more.

It's fun, I like the classic styling, I like the 9500rpm redline, you know, if this thing... rollerbearings, um, overhead cam with a 9500rpm redline, if it said Porsche on it it would be a million bucks, but because it was Honda it was, like, okay, well, motorcycle, blah, blah, blah... but it's not really motorcycle technology, cause they didn't put this engine in a motorcycle, it was in a car, and it had that really unique chain drive rear-axle setup which is fun, kind of gives it a primitive independent rear suspension, and they're wonderful to drive. People like them, they make people smile. They're just kind of fun cars.

I get a big kick out of this one. People are amazed, it sounds like a Grand Prix car. You can rev the hell out of it.

DS: How often do you drive this?

Leno:  I drove it down here. Took an hour and a half to get down here. I mean I drive it, not every day, because I have a lot of cars, but I use it a lot. It's very dependable, it doesn't overheat... Americans get afraid of the 9500rpm redline, they're going down the road, looking at 8-grand at 65 or 70 and they think, "oh, I'm beating the engine up." But, your not. Here in America we're used to low torque. This is the exact opposite, and that's why I like it. It's a different driving experience. It's unique. There aren't any American cars that have a feel or sound like this, and they're so light. I mean it's only 600cc's the engine is less than the size of one piston in a V8, so... that's what makes it great fun.

And it's fun to see the history, when I meet guys that have the S2000, they don't realize this is the grandfather of their car, they come over and look at it. The similarities are really quite similar, you know, it's a high-revving engine, even though the S2000 doesn't rev as high as this one did, so that's kind of fun.

DS: This car and the Cosmo, beside those do you have any other Japanese classic cars?

Leno: No. My first car was a Datsun 1600 and I liked that a lot. I'm going to find another one of those some day.