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I'm sure many of you have seen this clip of Jay going for a ride in the Hemi Under Glass:


I saw Bob Riggle do almost the same thing in 1964. I was living at Glenview Naval Air Station, Ill; they were having their annual open house/air show. Exhibits included the Goldenrod Bonneville car and the Hemi Under Glass ('64 body style).....the Hurst Hairy Olds was supposed to be there too but it had burned to the ground the week before. Riggle did demos on Saturday and Sunday on the ramp in front of Base Ops.....during the end of his first run on Sunday he did almost the same thing he does in the Leno video, the difference was they put the car back on its wheels and he drove it back in a wheelie, crunched roof and all. The reason I was able to see this up close was our Boy Scout troop had been assigned to assist with crowd control....pretty neat memory for a 12 year old!

Man that sucks!!! That Barracuda is built like a tank though! The engine was still running!

I hate to say it, but everything was that tough in those days. Of course that particular car did have a roll bar...

It seems to me, cars today have so little torque, the manufacturers have done what European and Japanese factories did many years ago. They make the body out of very thin sheet metal (a Nissan Maxima can be totalled with your foot in minutes), and depend on expensive computer stuff (which you can't work on), to make up the difference for the tiny engine's capability. They ignore the fact that a big strong American V-8 that is hardly having to work much at all, gets better gas mileage and lasts much, much longer than a tiny engine flailing its guts out. That's in the US, where we drive many times more miles than the European or Asian market. All it takes is a slow build to speed, keeping your foot out of it.

And of course, if all that electronic controlled engine stuff were on a big American V-8, it would be that much better, like my 1995 Buick Roadmaster- rear wheel drive, automatic trans, 4,400 pounds of steel, with an LT-1 engine that gets 36 mpg with 4 big men in it and 600 pounds of tools in the trunk. And it does 115mph for 200 miles while it gets that mileage with that load, with no strain at all. That's how I learned my lesson, running full out to rescue my folks' 92 year old house back in 2014. I get about 19 mpg in town.

They are really looking for good TV ratings off of this...

I was watching cable last night and they must have advertised the crash 4 or 5 times....

The episode airs tonight...

In the episode, which airs on Wednesday, Leno can be heard saying it is "2,500 horsepower on two wheels. What could go wrong?" as Riggle, now 80 years old, revs :angry-screaming: the engine.

That's a great setup.

It was nothing Bob did, to cause the flip, which is a saving grace, I think. The rear end pops up just briefly, unsettling the car, altogether.

A real shame. It was a purty body!

The bounce sometimes happens with a solid mounted rear end. I had the good fortune to see the Hemi Under Glass and the Little Red wagon in a two out of three match race at Great Lakes Dragway. Impressive to see the pair carrying the front ends. It took quite a bit of driving skill to keep them going straight. Strong crosswinds could be quite unnerving.

Ouch!