26 Aug 05
Now we are going to up the power from 900 to 1600 horsepower. Why, you ask? What kind of talk is that? If there's more horsepower there, you might as well get it. We will do it with twin turbos and Bosch fuel injection. I am hoping we might be able to get wheelspin with 1600bhp. It's a little tricky to torque-load it because the tyres are huge. One rotation of that tyre is 11 feet. It's a big tyre!
The whole car weighs 9,500 pounds but that is 1/20th of what the original tank weighed, so this thing is fast. Best of all, it's hilarious to drive. You pull up to people and they're usually looking at the middle of the engine, it's so tall. If you want to see what the tank car looks like, it's in the new Gran Turismo 4 Playstation game. It got in there by accident.
The Gran Turismo people said "we need to record a Lamborghini Miura, a McLaren F1 and some other car sounds, and have you got anything?" I said "sure, come on down." They came down with all the testing equipment and so on, and then they went "what's THAT?" And the Japanese got all excited, and were going backwards and forwards to each other, because it just looks like a giant... it looks like something that would attack Tokyo. It looks like Godzilla. There was a lot of chattering. And then they asked if they could take pictures, and I said yeah. It's interesting, they had a special 3D camera that no one else is allowed to see. It's the trick piece of kit that allows them to make the car look so realistic in the game.
They took pictures of the tank car, and they said, "how do you feel about this being in the game?" So I said that would be fun. "Put it in the game". I don't get any money or anything for it. It's just fun. "Go ahead. Have a good time". So that's how it wound up in the Playstation game. Now, on the days when it is not sunny in LA, I get to drive it at home as well as on the street. That's hilarious.
Jay Leno was speaking to Jeremy Hart
IMAGE GALLERY
Don't forget to check out the Jay Leno Tank Car Gallery for more great pictures of this astonishing car.
