Jay Leno's Baker Electric Car

hi I'm Dennis gage thanks for tuning into my classic car home with a certified car nut today I'm in one of my favorite place on earth Jay Leno's shop Jay's all they've got the cool stuff I never know what he's gonna be working on so it's always a thrill for me to it if there is but there's Jay I don't know how he gets in here he's like a ghost oh hey I actually had a key made to see ya that's always a pleasure chase it's always a pleasure what so what's new man oh well wewe just been making a body for this you may have seen this a couple years ago it was women what in a big wooden we didn't have a body on it and my friend Robin he he kind of hand formed this whole thing it's not based on anything it's just sort of a interpretation of what a mid-30s rules would look like it's a 34 rolls chassis this is the Spitfire engine right yeah out of the fighter plane so we went with just kind of a fastback original design using all the styling cues from the from the 30s so it looks it looks period it'll it'll be cool when it'll be done will be black with red and what's such a monstrous engine and the rolls chassis is fine with holding something that big [Music] so we're putting that boss fuel injection on it oh man whole deal yeah what kind of horsepower is that gonna hopefully about 1,600 mm I live in a hilly area yeah you wanna be able to no no boy you know want to have that little extra boost to get you over there and next to it this is a kind of a unique car there was a guy named Peter Monteverde who who was a Swiss guy I guess he was born about 1937 1938 he's really the only Swiss car manufacturer and what he would do he would you could use Chrysler running gear it looks very Italian it does look Italian but it's really more Swiss it's it's a 440 Chrysler with a Chrysler running gear and four-speed with European brakes and suspension and his own chassis these were quite expensive cars these were just as expensive as the Rolls Royce or rolls-royce Ferrari Lamborghini and it's a bit as if you took your if you took your 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner and you sent it to college in Europe this is where we come back yeah instead of a morph underhanded hood yeah yeah here I'll show you I mean they it handles pretty nicely because the engine is set pretty far back it's almost sort of mid-engine you know I mean it's right up under the dash the both brake boosters are down under here pretty lightweight it's about 3,300 pounds this one here was the London Show cards they only built four bodies in this particular style this is the 375s that means 375 horsepower speed that's your speed and sheath it goes great well you know 16 cylinder rolls-royce a 440 here you know with the gas prices and everything today I mean it's it's got to be I have the solution whoo that the gas crisis you do yes siree Bob well show me the solution follow me welcome back to my classic car this is the solution yeah this was a revolutionary car in its day this in 1909 Baker electric was the front end that's the great thing about it's a bit like driving a phone booth I have to say it's the only car I have there's one hundred percent maintenance-free I mean I've never I mean I painted it and restored it but the windings are of such high quality it just doesn't break you know it's a turn-of-the-century they really wanted to show people how because people were scared of electricity yeah I mean it was a frightening thing at the time you know it's a bit like hydrogen is now people like hey wait a minute is that Hindenburg yeah can't you get electric you know so the idea I mean it's such a beautifully put together motor and although it looks like a carriage it is a carriage but it has some high-tech ideas for the time you have leather fenders see leather was the carbon fiber of the day very light lightest yeah okay lightweight well these open and close and you have to understand this is even before the advent of the wind up window so what you had to do was you you'd undo these here these are if you notice they're like oh they're like railroad windows you pull it up like this oh you see and then you pull it over then you kind of put it back down again there that's cool but see these were that's quite an ornate interior well he was a trouble with electric cars the idea was they really appealed to women because at the time you know the self-starter hadn't been invented yet so steam was a hassle steam was a hassle and steam was dirty and messy and scary you know on a regular bills you the hand crank and bang and set the choke and work the clutch these are popular women shopping cars so what they did was they really marketed them to women they made it look like a woman's sitting room you had the flowers you see you've got to see the clock and there's a makeup you opened up in this face powder and you know makeup and all but then the problem was well no man wanted to buy that was the problem with so consequently electrics were relegated as women shopping carts but this thing went a hundred miles on a charge at the turn of the century there were 15,000 of them in New York City you could drive there were charging stations all over the city oh yeah there they were all over the place there are a lot of them I mean looking like this looking like the phone yeah yeah and they were really quite you know it's interesting one day I was having my house termite it they put the you know big a phantom so my wife said I always stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel we never stayed there and I said okay so we'll spend two days bill Tilghman so I Drive this to the Beverly Hills Hotel I pull up and they go hey is that mrs. so-and-so Skaro who's mrs. so-and-so she goes oh she used to come in and get her hair done every year for almost 50 years and she would park in one of these I said wait she goes what we haven't seen in a year or two and I tried and she had just died but she had a Baker electric I never found the car but from like 1935 until almost 2001 she would take this thing to the Beverly Hills Hotel every week to get her hair done welcome back to my classic car now is it is it completely silent of course I mean it's yeah and does it have a transmission no no it's your direct right that's a great thing about electricity is like steam you have all your torque right away yeah so it'll climb any Hill at 23 miles an hour that's 40 miles and I was about the tops kind of would've done and believe me when you're going downhill with this 22 miles an hour plenty fast fun because it tends to high side it is like driving a phone booth and you know my wife loves it cuz we use is it the holidays that go look at the Christmas lights and it's the only car I have a live deer the deer come right up and look in the window because there's no smell as no Sam yeah and they you know if there's deer on the road will stop and they walk right up I think it's something about this courage glass and they go like this well I think that's not my wife that's the greatest car we've ever had yeah yeah so charging stations with the original charging station here I I don't have all the pieces to put it together but it does have sort of and these are kind of cool these are the original Thomas Edison batteries Thomas Edison invented the alkaline battery to double the range of an electric car of electric cars and he did it just didn't double it enough it wasn't far enough but see what you do is you just you take him you'd flush them out and you clean them then you put pour fresh acid in them and they were good for another two or three years you know so you could use these same batteries over and over again it's East look at the all the evident patent information and you man now that's got to be a rare piece do not use acid in this battery put water in and I'm sorry I'm sorry mr. Edison that's distilled water yeah wild looking car in and you it's with many of your cars you have kind of the original law yeah that's the original and that was quite a racy ad in the day so you got the guy says daddy get me a baker but you're not quite clear if it's really her father or so creepy congressman looking again he does have that creepy colors a little innocent face in the window there she's kind of I'll get you a baker so so like where they store the batteries miss baby well you saw the Edison batteries they showed you those and that's what it was if I want but I've just got modern batteries they fit right in there six of them here's the front six six and back yeah yeah and those Edison crates would have taken the place of these right same thing same thing these are deep-cycle these are like you'd use in a golf cart and there's six volt there's six volt batteries yeah yeah you get more power with six volts hmm more amperage I guess so I'm not a electric guy I think yeah sure yeah yeah what he said yeah deep-cycle six batteries six volt seemed to have more power so that's why we use them people look at it they have no idea how you drive it cuz you see there doesn't appear to be any Sun no there doesn't appear to be a steering wheel so how does what happen I shouldn't have been listen okay so I just just hop in hop in slide over okay this is your tiller right here this is what your steer with your leash your handbrake and you turn your key there's some gauge 1 volts volts went up and away we go [Music] welcome back on my classic car the Belles I think the bills yeah they're just worth with the price of admission well it just has that department store men's wear lingerie I don't do it you know you keep your eye on your gauges [Music] plus you can look down another car you've got that you do have that kind of superior feel okay and the nice thing is you can look down on Prius owners with their gas polluting three-cylinder whatever that is motor electricity only and everything even the lights are electric yeah electric lights are a big deal in 1909 most cars still had gas lamps so this was all electric like when my wife and I go out to eat I park and I just leave the lights on but you know see you really want to go much better no no this probably good enough in it it is really as tall as it is long and as suspension is not really they're not really they're going downhill there's nobody Canada breaking as usual J let me take the wheel I mean tiller rudder thingy whatever [Music] this is a little unnerving j-just if we see suddenly 23 miles an hour's pretty damn scary I will never complain again this school Jay flatout yeah I'm doing the best I can okay what I'm enjoying I'm enjoying the ride but it wasn't it's great it's right when you're looking at Christmas lights it's the best next after you know after you get on to it it it is kind of relaxing yeah fast job [Music] other thing is ataxia be great because you don't go very fast the meter just keeps growing exactly let's see the minute but in the day this is about a Model T only 142 miles an hour this goes 23 so don't forget the roads weren't paid right [Music] that's enough to make a hand signal reach out don't work it out sort of bugs [Music] does it this pop heavy oh yeah we're here we're maybe next week we'll travel to Mount Washington New Hampshire for climbed to the clouds this historic filled climb will put these classic racecars to the test plus we'll look at under hood rubber replacement for your ride so until our next meeting remember honor the timeless classic I'm Dennis gage this is Jay Willem happy motoring save the planet drive an electric car [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 2,067,057

Rating: 4.8644829 out of 5

Keywords: My Classic Car, Classic Car, Dennis Gage, Jay Leno, Baker Electric Car, Electric Car, Jay Leno's Garage, Jay's Garage, Baker Electric, Jay Leno Electric Car, first electric car, 1st electric car, Jay Leno's Cars, Jay Leno collection, Driving electric car, driving classic electric car, driving old electric cars

Id: OhnjMdzGusc

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 26 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/BigBolognaSandwich]

That's one of the coolest things I've seen. Tickled.

[u/WE_FAM_NOW]

Can you imagine how much nicer our world would be if electric cars had won out back in the day? All the oil wars would've probably not been fought too.

[u/stevaloo]

I want one

[u/kr1os]

There is a great podcast on this topic: When the Cars Came

[u/razorbackgeek]

Something I'm curious about, and I don't believe they covered it, how do you accelerate?

[u/Reygle]

The Mustache, boys. The Mustache. Goodness me.

[u/pilg0re]

You can see an example of one of these at the Peterson Auto Museum in Los Angeles

[u/Infantry1stLt]

I heard recently Jay had a segment about the Bollinger B1 all electric tuck. Anyone had a link?

[u/thepeck]

I want to see the motor