About a year ago, I looked forward to Bill Goldberg’s AutoManic series, on the History Channel. I said, “at last, and American car show hosted by a real car guy. Well, Goldberg ain’t no Jay Leno; he’s obviously another head-up-his-ass celebrity car guy. On one show, Extreme Bikes, they showed an animation of the BMW boxer engine with a common crankpin (the beauty of the boxer design is that the opposed crankpins yield perfect primary and secondary balance). On another, Gangster Cars, he claimed first that Al Capone’s 1929 Cadillac V-16 was “the most powerful sedan of its day” (every car guy worth his salt knows it was the Duesenburg Model J), and that John Dillinger’s second Essex Terraplane had a “V-8” (no, it was a straight-8). What an idiot.

Update: Actually, I have heard Leno say one stupid thing. And, while far more esoteric than the matter of Duesy vs. Cadillac, it was still unsettling to hear it from a car guy of Leno’s stature. On some car show (I don’t recall which), he claimed that the Jaguar XK-120 was “the fastest production car of the early ’50s. No, Jay – that title goes to the Pegaso Z-102. You should know this.