Jay Leno Still Rebuilds His Own Cars Every Week

Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show for 22 years, from 1992 to 2014, and became one of the most recognizable faces on American television. He is 76 now. Most nights he is not on a stage. He is under a car.

From Late-Night Host to Full-Time Mechanic

Leno was a mechanic before he was a comedian. In the 1970s he worked at Foreign Motors in Boston, servicing Mercedes, Citroen and Rolls-Royce cars for a living.

He never stopped. Even at the height of his Tonight Show fame, Leno spent his days off in a Burbank shop, wrenching on old engines with his own crew.

"The guy who works with his hands is better than the guy who just sits and types in a computer all day," Leno has said of the work.

212 Cars, 186 Motorcycles, One Shop

That shop is a 122,000-square-foot building near Burbank Airport that Leno bought in 1991. His team calls it the Big Dog Garage.

Inside sit roughly 212 cars and 186 motorcycles, ranging from a 1955 Buick Roadmaster he bought in 1973 to a 1907 White Steam Car more than a century old, according to a 2025 profile of the collection.

Every vehicle is kept battery-charged and drivable. Nothing sits as a static display piece.

Every Monday, Whether Anyone's Watching or Not

Leno turned that habit into a show. Jay Leno's Garage launched as a web series in 2014 and now runs on his own YouTube channel, which has grown to nearly 4 million subscribers.

A new episode goes up almost every Monday. Some weeks it is a first drive of a new electric car. Most weeks it is Leno and his crew tearing an old engine apart on camera and putting it back together.

Still Clocking In

Leno has now been running his garage channel for more than a decade. His crew, which calls itself the Big Dog team, keeps every car in the collection roadworthy year-round.

He still drives every one of them himself.