Jay Leno’s car collection encompasses a wide variety of marques, from the familiar to the very esoteric. But one name is missing: Ferrari. In a December 2021 appearance on the podcast “Cars and Culture,” Leno explained why he doesn’t own a single car with the Prancing Horse badge.
“I just never liked dealing with the dealers,” Leno said. “It’s not an indictment of the car.”
Considering how expensive the cars are, Leno feels Ferrari dealers don’t treat customers properly. In the short clip, he cited Ferrari dealers forcing customers to buy multiple cars in order to secure orders, and claimed the company strong-arms owners into paying for certificates of authenticity. Other supercar builders do better, he said.
Ferrari SF90 Stradale
Leno recalled McLaren offering a free power upgrade for his MP4-12C, and a salesperson honestly telling him that he didn’t need to spend $20,000 on carbon-ceramic brakes. Leno is a big McLaren fan; he’s owned an F1 since new and was the first outside McLaren to drive a P1, but regardless, it’s hard to argue with service like that.
Similarly, Leno said Porsche delivered his Carrera GT to his garage and gave him a full walkthrough of the car (which turned out to be a bit unreliable, admittedly). Ferrari would never provide that level of service, he claims.
Leno said Ferrari still makes “excellent” cars, and he’s featured a few on his “Jay Leno’s Garage” YouTube show, ranging from a classic 1960 250 PF Cabriolet to a modern SF90 Stradale. One perk of having a popular YouTube show is that, even if you don’t want to deal with the potential headaches of owning a Ferrari, you can always borrow one.