Rolling Back The Miles

By Royal Ford  |  April 22, 2007

REGULAR WATCHERS of The Tonight Show know that Jay Leno is a car buff who owns an eclectic menagerie of automobiles and motorcycles. But not everyone knows how his passion started when he was growing up in Andover. So we asked him.

HE WAS BIG ON SOUND. "I always liked anything that rolled and exploded and made noise."

IN HIS MIND, CARS EQUALED BEING AN ADULT. "When you grew up in a small town like Andover, you had to pedal like 8 miles to go anywhere. And the kids who had cars, they were like men."

HE BOUGHT A '34 FORD FOR $350 WHEN HE WAS 14. He spotted it while at one of his hangouts, Kitty's Restaurant in North Reading. Leno had earned the money working in burger joints, garages, and car dealerships.

TOO YOUNG FOR A LICENSE, HE MADE DO. His family had a 300-foot driveway, and he drove the Ford down it and then back up - over and over. "I still have a kink in my shoulder from putting miles on that car."

HIS PARENTS UNDERSTOOD HIS OBSESSION. Later, the Ford was painted and the seats reupholstered. But a friend of his accidentally broke the passenger's window. Leno drove it to school, but then it started raining, and he feared for his new interior. "My dad went and got my mother, drove out to the high school, and they covered my car," he recalls of their loving rescue. "I was sitting there in class with tears in my eyes."