Listen To This: 2004 Porsche Carrera GT - Jay Leno's Garage

they just put an album out just of this thing going through the gear i could play it on a cd while i'm driving the car fantastical episode of jay leno's garage the car featuring today my 2004 porsche carrera gt i i can't believe i've had this thing almost 17 years and we haven't done it yet you know we've used it on the cnbc show and we went to talladega i'll get into that a little bit but anyway here we are i'm glad to say we have not our full crew back but we're meeting all the cobot guidelines and everybody wears a mask and got say six feet apart and we get tested every day so make sure our crew is safe this is i know it's taking quite a while to get to this point but it's well worth it uh everybody has remained safe and well and that's that's important okay let's go back to uh the car interesting this become a legendary car when they came out they're about four hundred and forty thousand dollars and then i would say in the uh 2010 12 13 they dropped into the 200 000 and now they're back being million dollar cars again not again for the first time it this is a unique car v10 5.7 liter 603 horsepower i realize in today's markets 600 horsepower doesn't sound like a whole lot but this thing only weighs 3 000 pounds and it is the greatest sounding engine of just about any car uh you'll you'll hear that in a minute we've we've put some special microphones on the exhaust pipe so you can hear it it's such a fun car to drive uh i i think you probably know the story of these uh how it was originally the engine was developed for racing at le mans and uh well that whole thing went away and what are you gonna do with this and in 2000 they revealed a show car using the engine and then in 2004 it came out with this like it is the last analog porsche there's no stability control on it it's a six-speed and it's famous for its engineering it's ceramic clutch uh the clutch is it was just a little over 6.7 inches just about that big and i remember i i was so astounded by it i called porsha and i said can you send me one of the clutches and they sent me one of the clutches and we all looked at it here the shop and thought this is pretty amazing i should get the rest of the pieces to go with it because i was just so amazed at the clutch it was amazing they could transmit that much that much horsepower plus it allowed them to lower the car this car is with 3.9 inches off the ground yeah it's very low in fact when i got it every time i went to a gas station or a speed right here you just scrape everything you know so i called porsche they said we have a lift kit that will raise it about a quarter of an inch so now instead of going it goes it just scrapes a little higher a little less but you can still hear it but it's not as bad as it was you know it's interesting i kind of fell in and out of love with this car because when i got it uh i was doing a tv show another thing i didn't get to drive it a whole lot but i really enjoyed it then after about two and a half years i'd be on the freeway and it would kind of jump from lane to lane i couldn't figure what i what's going on with this thing i didn't have an accident you know i couldn't figure out what was wrong and then i parked it i i used other cars while i would still take it out and then i realized oh these shocks were gone and i put went to porsche uh put brand new shocks on it and it just transformed the car i mean for some reason there was a problem with it initially that i just we just didn't diagnose because i'd never driven one and now i love this thing it's it's fantastic it's just a wonderful wonderful car let me come around open the hood for you you've got electronic switch here okay well there you have it as i said v10 5.7 liter just a beautiful engine bay and engine compartment look at all this carbon fiber here very stiff chassis you know it's interesting when i pull this out of the driveway it's the only car i have where you'll have three wheels up and one wheel this way because it doesn't flex at all it actually has one wheel off the ground uh i can't say i've had any problem with this you know i would hear people complain not so much the magazine riders but when they first came out people didn't like the clutch you know read the directions i read one guy in san francisco burned his clutch out in the first couple of days with the hills and the way you drive this car is you get in you start it up you put it in gear you take your foot off the clutch without touching the throttle once it engages nail the throttle and you're fine you can do burnouts all day with it if you want if you do it that way if you try to slip it away you're just going to burn out that little clutch and that's like a 20 or 30 thousand dollar job but this one is fine i had no problems with it uh it's just been fantastic it is truly a fascinating car to drive boy it feels like a lot more than 603 horsepower even after driving some of the other cars i have of the ford gt or the p1 mclaren is there's something about this sound that is so intoxicating i mean it really is a sensory overload driving this just a wonderful wonderful car to drive there's such passion in the design and building of this porsche you know we always think of uh the italians as having the passion for the cars and the germans yes it was exactly exciting but there's this this is the perfect combination of german technology and engineering with passion if you've read any of the books on the career gt and the design team and the the folks who built it it's uh it's it's it's pretty fascinating and it's a unique engine that has never been used in anything else i guess we have the cayman to thank for this you know when porsche started doing suvs and four-door sedans people went ah well that's the end of port actually that was the savior company there's only so many two-seater sports cars you can sell so you've got to broaden your market and all the money made from selling those cars helped to make this car and across all subsequent cars cars after that so you've got to have your bread and butter cars to help build and maintain these things so i mean just the way the suspension is set up is is uh we've got double wishbones with spring shock absorber units these are operated by push rods as you can see with the stabilizer or anti-roll bars you want to call it that you got straight wound coil springs at each wheel with gas-filled shock absorbers those are mounted coaxially uh inside take a look the front uh double wishbone with spring shock absorber units those operated by push rods same thing and you got power assisted rack and pinion steering if you wonder what this flashing light is here that's our c-tec trickle charger c-tec is really the best i i find i use them on all my cars because they're the ones the manufacturers use of porsche uses ctec ferrari for everybody because they don't over you know sometimes you go to some big box store and you buy that oh look here's a chinese-made uh trickle charger for half the price well there's a reason it's half the price is because they usually wind up boiling the battery you know a problem i had with this car when i first got it i take it out in the road i throw it into a corner and whoa it sounded like the engine cut out what was that trying to figure out what it was and then one day it just stopped okay and we flat bedded it back here and we couldn't figure out what it was i said well maybe it's losing power are we sure the battery's connected i'm sure well let's so to take the battery out of this thing you got to pull the wheel off and get a new well what had happened was somebody at the factory or whenever when i got it just didn't tighten it enough and it was one of those deals where the battery when it when when you shifted the car violently it would literally lift off the battery terminal and then just go back on and lift off so once we fixed that then the car was perfect it's just one of those stupid little things that can knock you right out of the box but i mean i'm still mad that i had to flatbed it for that but there's no way i could have tightened that on the road anyway so the wheel had to come off he had to get underneath it one of the pitfalls of having an extremely complicated car with a very very simple problem you know it was my 63 ford falcon i opened the hood well there you go right there pretty cool you know oh i mentioned about the clutch before this something i found out was interesting i think tilton was which is an american manufacturer uh owned the patent that had something to do with the clutch on this so i like that american connection because anytime my cars have an american connection i think that's kind of cool all right let's shut this hood again and we'll come around we'll show you the front tires of michelin pilot super sports i'm told that this michelin tire was developed specifically for this car but it does make a heck of a difference i mean michelin tires are unbelievable they really are the best uh you notice you've got these center lock wheels these are forged magnesium center lock wheels red on this side blue on the other because one's a right hand thread one's a left hand thread that's so you don't get them screwed up and you've got your lock right in there you've got 19s in the front you've got 20s in the back the brakes right here as you pretty massive dual circuit abs six piston monoblock alloy calipers uh you've got the composite ceramic brake discs uh they're pretty neat hydraulic booster servo the whole deal the car stops and handles pretty amazing all right let's take a look at the interior notices it's just a regular door no dopey thing that comes out and goes sideways and you turn it you just open the door this way something that's kind of fun you got a little hidden compartment here maybe a lot of owners don't like to show that but and it comes with a little leather thing you put leather whatever whatever you put in a leather bag i don't know put it in there i don't put anything in there but i suppose you can there you go so but now when cops stop you if you can't wait to say open that uh door there this has got the terra cotta interior which i really like i think it's really attractive wonderful to get in when the top is off horrible to get in with the top is i never put the top in in this car the top is in the front i'll show you that in a minute a very comfortable place to be classic porsche instrument with your tachometer right in the center water temperature because it's water cooled obviously speedo all the gauges fuel whatever and of course the famous balsa wood shift knob which is i guess you can also get uh carbon fiber i like the wood because it harkens back to the 917 which also had it i love it up here you know my favorite thing about early alfa romeos was that high uh gear shift you know it was high up uh the early alpha spiders and the julia's and all that and that was that was a five-speed which seemed so exotic when i was a kid because when you bought a mustang or corvette standard transition was a three-speed then you go to all four-speed or you can get the automatic and you've got beautiful leather interior nice stereo cd player remember those because this is really the last days of the old technology it's the last as i said analog porsche and i think that's what makes it so attractive and i love the fact that they developed a transmission and a special clutch just for this car you know porsche doesn't go into the parts bin and what do we got left over okay let's put something together and call it a car i mean this was built out of passion out of design you know it's it's funny i i to me i think it's a beautiful looking car i i've never seen um a german car that's sort of over the top that's more for us americans are the italians it's always form follows function it's always understated the car is always better than and faster than whatever porsche said it is and that's interesting to me you know partial say oh it's 3.6 then you get one they go no it's 3.2 david donahue and i went to uh florida and why portia asked me to do this i have no idea but we were going to set some speed records with the carrera gt why you would ask a aging comedian to do that i don't know but it was a great thrill a great honor and we were lapping talladega about 190 and i was coming down the back straight and one thing you don't do at those speeds you know it's interesting it was the first time i'd ever driven 200 miles an hour and i didn't hit 200 in this high 190s but after about 25 or 50 laps at that speed you know it's all very sensitive you can feel the tires start to uh lose traction a little bit it's just starting to do this a little bit in the in those high-speed banking you know the banking is so you can't really walk up and you almost have to get on your hands and knees and anyway it's just sort of doing this we'd show you the footage but we can't afford it because it doesn't belong to me it belongs to somebody else to license it but if you go to google on youtube and leno talladega porsche it'll show you the spin out anyway i was coming down the back straight a couple articles said this happened in the corner it didn't happen in the corner and i was coming back straight and i saw the guy the guy gave me one of these that's good i said oh great and like an idiot i just lifted my foot a little bit off the throttle and the rear end came around and we spun about five or eight times down the center of the track now i always remember race car drivers saying you're going to hit what you're looking at so as you started to spin i saw the wall so i immediately turned my head which made me cut the wheel then i saw the wall on that side i cut the wheel so i managed to just spin down the center track but we flat spotted all four tires just all four tires were ruined instantly didn't hit anything didn't damage the car but to spin out at 191 is uh it was an interesting experience uh all the porsche norbert singer was there the legendary tuner and suspension man from porsche i mean it was an honor to meet him and this was the fastest porsche ever developed up to that point i mean it's amazing how quickly technology moves i mean i realized that's almost 20 years ago which is a long time but not when you're not when you're my age and cars have gotten so amazingly fast and horsepower and everything else but it was really a thrilling experience to drive this thing at that speed and to hear that engine note to be redlining in fifth gear or fourth gear is was really fascinating the red line on this thing is about 8 100 8 200 and to be going 190 and see the needle moving into the red that's uh that was pretty cool but it's really a matter just holding the wheel like this you just sort of you know no no quick moves uh because this back end will come around and this car had gotten a reputation as sort of a widowmaker type of thing james theme type of thing i remember when paul walker had his accident uh there were people going to sue porsche and their lawyers would call me and i would say no it's because they had seen me spin out and i said no it was my fault it was not porsha's fault porsche they said oh i didn't have stability joke well first of all most people turn it off and second of all they didn't deem was necessary trying to make the car as light as possible and this car is well it's like you know you should know how to you should i guess it's personal responsibility you know uh and i gave my testimony in favor of porsha because i believe they were correct you know you get some lawyers oh for the for just a 29 cent part they could have said well no that wasn't the case with with this car this is a purpose-built car you shouldn't drive it unless you're skilled and you know what you're doing and mine was a classic case of driver error coming down that straight i just lifted my foot off a little too soon a little too quickly and just made the car just spin i mean i might have been a little bit of a coming off the banking that might have contributed to it but we just we'll take a look at it you see the car just just curly cue down the track and i drove it back into the pits it was fine as i said the tires were it was a set of tires but i didn't damage the car and i didn't damage myself so that that was good so i i guess i should thank porsche for saving me because of my stupid driver era that's pretty much the story on that let's uh let's take a look at the front and i'll show you i'll show you where the roof goes there's no way to get out of this gracefully you have another switch down here as you can see you have your roof goes in these bags and it stacks in here if you take the roof off there's no trunk space at all you may be able to carry a pez dispenser with one extra pez but that's about it if you don't know what pez is it's just a candy uh here is your i love the fact that they give you your own special wrench to take the wheels off but there's no they don't give you the pry bar yeah so i guess i don't know where he's supposed to come up with that but this is it here see that that grips right on let you take the wheel off i could take this out and put the roof on but then it'd be then i have to put it back in there i only took this i put the roof on once i took my wife for a ride and this is a cost ow my hair kind of this is the ultimate ow my hair kind of car so i had to pull over and put the roof on and then it was okay but it's such a different car with the roof on it it seems claustrophobic and you can't really see out the back and of course to get in you gotta do that so with the roof off it's just glorious it's it's the most wonderful sounding car well you're gonna hear it in just a minute and uh let's show you what i'm talking about let's go for a ride [Music] you know it's funny this is so like any other porsche up to this point and yet it is so like what porsche is all about it's emotional it makes all the right noises yet it's not really like any other porsche they ever built but it sort of follows the porsche ethos of science and artistry and pad oh it's just fantastic i love this thing you know i don't believe there's any aftermarket exhaust system you could put on this car to make it sound better it might make it sound louder but it won't sound better it strikes just exactly the right tone not obnoxious you know you're not getting the neighbors yelling and screaming but it just ah symphony orchestra it's a classic example of a tuned exhaust system you know somebody worked just hundreds of hours to get this just right see this is what i love about this because this is the job i always wanted it looks like you're working but you're not really working you're just driving cars and it's perfect you know if you can find a job that's also your hobby ah there's nothing better in the world i have so many friends that go to work and they hate it you know and i go oh i'm not really going to work it's going like a garage oh that's right i guess that's working this thing has got something like i think it's 10 oil pumps just to make sure oil is going everywhere it's supposed visibility is excellent i can see on the review mirror with the top off just fantastic i know the pdk is faster but to me there's nothing like grabbing this shifter just moving it you just feel like you're in such control of the car just doing exactly what you want even if it's not faster at least i get to pick the gear on that i like that literally [Music] fantastical and i'm glad i got a chance to drive it at talladega because you don't uh often get to take a car like this to its limit you know and i wasn't really at limits about 205 but well you know with the banking it cuts a few miles per i think we're laughing at 192 something like that [Music] and when you're driving that speed it's funny you slow down to 60 you feel like you can get out [Music] jesse has so many moving parts playing it with such harmony it's fantastic [Music] and there's no flywheel much like the mclaren m1 see i always managed to get mclaren f1 in here there's no flywheel in this when you shut it off it shuts off right now the number of times i've played the radio on this car i can count on one hand usually just sitting in traffic you know okay but once you get out on the road up into the hills like where we're going off you know they originally supposed to build i guess 1500 of these i think they stopped at 1290 uh at least for the american market i think that's what it was you know the middle 2000s were a pretty good year for supercars he had the ford gt the first generation come out he had the slr uh mclaren mercedes and he had this porsche carrera so there was a lot of choices to be made the one that really surprised everybody i think was the ford gt nobody expected to be that good especially jeremy clarkson i think he actually bought one [Music] but this one something special because the ford gt was 143 000 and this was 440. [Music] [Music] they just wanted to help about just this thing going through the gears i could play it on a cd while i'm driving the car [Music] you know the pride of working with ship is really what comes through on these kind of cars i see so many cars that just i don't know panel is off gap is wrong russia always gets it right you know the level of craftsmanship the level of detail the way everything just sticks into place when you shift it got so much torque in every gear because there's so much composite the car is so light 600 horsepower actually feels like a lot more i gotta remember back in 2004 that was unbelievable [Music] hope you enjoyed this ride the carrera gt you know it's funny that they've become it's become a classic in such a short period of time but anyway i want to give you a taste of it and feel of it it's fun to have my crew back so it should sound better and look better too a little better it's not me holding a cell phone so welcome back and thanks for sticking with us through most of that pandemic stuff although it's not over see you guys next week [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 508,523

Rating: 4.9661255 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Porsche, Carrera, GT, Paul Walker, Talladega, David Donohue, V10, Le Mans, supercar, luxury cars, car porn, gearhead, motonerd, spin out, Jay Leno's Garage, Jay Leno, car reviews, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, 2004 Porsche Carrera GT, jay leno interview, 2004 Porsche Carrera, Porsche Carrera, Porsche Carrera GT, modded cars, carrera gt acceleration, carrera gt top gear, leno

Id: nWTsDSzbGag

Length: 26min 17sec (1577 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/6BigAl9]

Had the fortune of hearing one in person and I have to agree with Jay, it's the best sounding car I've ever heard.

[u/flapsmcgee]

Video of Jay Leno spinning a Carrera GT at Talladega at 190 mph: https://youtu.be/0uq2dK6JktM

[u/AReissueOfMisuse]

Just might be the greatest car of all time. Technologically brilliant but obviously one of the most raw and dangerous super cars ever produced.

Developed at the perfect time period before all the invasive technologies of today but not lacking in presentation, quality, or engineering.

[u/DougieJackpots]

I almost got T-Boned by one of these in college right after they came out. Bet the driver shit his pants harder than I shit mine.

[u/la727]

Saw a black cgt driving on the highway in Seattle a month back, amazing cars.

[u/HumbleBrothers]

What a machine.

[u/SB_90s]

Still my number one dream car after all these years, closely followed by the Ferrari F40.

[u/NobleGas18]

The sound in the intro is quite the hook.

[u/ChemicaLust]

I’ll never forget the time a teenage me finally saw one on the road only to see the owner stall out