He lost a window at 130 mph; didn’t even flinch
In a clip video promoting his show on CNBC Prime, Jay Leno takes famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson for a ride in one of his special cars: the EcoJet.
Built by General Motors in collaboration with Leno, the EcoJet is a one-off vehicle powered by a Honeywell LTS-101 turbine engine packing 650 horsepower and 400 lb-ft. The idea was building a car that uses renewable energy (while going fast and looking bonkers, of course), so the EcoJet runs on bio-fuel only.
Given the fact the car wasn’t bought, and there is nobody else that has one, we’d dare say it’s a priceless bit of the automotive universe. But considering it has a unique propelling aggregate, and the fact that the Corvette Z06 chassis on which it sits is clad in carbon fiber, it mustn’t be cheap at all.
The EcoJet’s top speed is not known, but it is believed it can go “a lot faster” than 165 mph (265 mph) – the speed achieved in this brief run captured on camera. Maybe Jay would have pushed harder if it wasn’t for the driver window to blow out at 130 mph (210 km/h). But “stuff happens,” as the two gentlemen concluded after.
More impressively than the run itself is Jay’s reaction regarding the incident. Just look at him! He didn’t even flinch. His face looks like is saying: “Mh. Minor inconvenience.”