Hmmm.. owns a few Lambo Has the first P1 in the USA has a bunch of muscle cars takes porsche for top speed runs I would say he's as much a motorhead/speedfreak as anyone here.
If you ever see his show, you will know he is a car lover as well as a collector. He finds true driver cars much more fun and exhilarating. And he has a great deal of knowledge . Do not dismiss him as a mere collector. He keeps insurance on every one of his vehicles and drives them regularly.
I respect Leno`s knowledge and passion for collecting cars. IMO he is not passionate driver in a sense that he is testing limits of his cars (like Chris Harris is doing for instance). If you are real petrolhead you just CANT miss to own some of cars Ferrari made in last three decades. James Glickenhaus is pretty much same type of guy. Those two guys are very passionate collectors who probably had some issues with Ferrari as company so they decided not to buy Ferrari cars. Leno mentioned his (allegedly) main reason for not owning modern Ferrari`s, saying modern Ferrari`s are technologically complex machines that needs to be serviced in official service. For true petrolhead that kind of reason is plain funny, even further if he actually owns VERY complex cars in his garage that must be serviced in official service. For instance, Chris Harris had huge issues with Ferrari as a company, but he was highly impressed with cars they were producing and he even loaned some of cars from his friends, so he can test them (when he was banned from Ferrari). For me, that kind of attitude is known for true petrolhead.
I think we all relate to, and appreciate cars in different ways. Some drive them very hard, some enjoy working on them, some just want to look at them. Who is to say which is right and which is wrong. My opinion is they are all legitimate ways to enjoy cars. And I am an admirer of both Jay Leno and Chris Harris
News from Top Gear: The P1 vs. 918 vs. LaFerrari test will take place after all. Ferrari still won't let them use customer cars, but McLaren has now agreed to a test with factory cars. Porsche currently doesn't have a factory car available, so the test will take place as soon as they do (which shouldn't take too long). They haven't decided on a track, but the manufacturers agree that it should be on 'neutral ground'. That would disqualify their individual test tracks, I reckon.
H2H comparisons of hyper-cars are meaningless. None of the owners bought them to compete against the other and none will sell theirs based on magazine testing. This is especially true of the Ferraris as they are so hard to get in the first place. I have also lost interest in halo cars with electric motors and battery packs. IMO that's where the real "cheating" has occurred.
I'd say silverstone since WEC and F1 both race there and there are plenty of fast straights and corners and its long enough.
I think they mean no factory test track. No fiorano,bring,top gear etc. Spa for example would be neutral. Magny Cours..imola..
like one of the member said here.. FEAR. because the one with the fastest track time will be considered the best by the rest of the world.
This test is not about the owners. It's about satisfying the curiosity of us fans who either can't afford them or chose not to invest (I use that word deliberately) in them. Bring it on!