After signing off from the Tonight Show last week, Jay Leno figured he would have a weekend of doing nothing but playing with his cars. Which of course made this past weekend no different than any other weekend for Jay. This time, however, he pulled out one of his more interesting and rare toys: the EcoJet, turbine-powered concept.
You might remember the EcoJet concept from the 2006 SEMA show. It uses a 650-horsepower Honeywell turbine for power and runs on biodiesel, lots and lots of biodiesel. Underneath, there's an all-aluminum Corvette Z06 chassis, while the body of the EcoJet is made entirely of carbon fiber and kevlar. In other words, this sucker was expensive.
We'll hand it to Jay though, he said back then that he would drive it on public roads, and yesterday he delivered on that promise. And say what you will about the design, when this thing pulled into the parking lot with its turbine wailing, all the open-piped Cobras on hand suddenly seemed quite tame.
All photos courtesy of Lateral-G Photography
redliner says:
10:31 AM, 06/ 1/09
...oh the joys of being a rich car nut...
desmolicious says:
12:49 PM, 06/ 1/09
That is what I imagine a Cadillac supercar would look like.
andersendl says:
12:55 PM, 06/ 1/09
Okay, so how is it that even a rich guy TV star like Leno drive a concept car on public roads legally?
Well...he can't. There's no VIN, so it can't be registered. It has no DOT emissions or safety cert. Let's see, wasn't it at the BJ collector car auction this past January that the Feds temporarily ordered a halt to the auctioning off of the GM concept car collection due to just such concerns?
Come on guys, get real here.
deagle13 says:
01:42 PM, 06/ 1/09
Well, the car has a current CA plate on the back, so it's obviously registered.
CA allows for the registration of "specially constructed" vehicles without federal VIN numbers, DOT certification, etc... There's a list of requirements that need to be met and apparently Jay met them all.
jimveta says:
11:21 PM, 06/ 1/09
yeah, CA has a bill for specially constructed vehicles that kit car owners and owners of self-built vehicles use -- you'll see buggys and race trucks occasionally running around with CA plates for example.
However, it's limited to 500 cars per year so the slots are filled up almost immediately.
atomguy says:
03:32 PM, 06/ 4/09
There is no limit on SPCNS (Specially Constructed Vehicles.)
There is a 500 limit on the SMOG-Exemption, which applies to GAS powered cars only.
You do not need SMOG on diesel powered cars (or electric, or anything that does not use pump gas).
The SPCNS program is setup for people who like to build kit cars, etc.