I will never forget the morning I catapulted to stardom, when Jay Leno mentioned my recent Jalopnik column on The Today Show. I was asleep, and I found out about it hours later on Twitter.
Here’s what happened: the people at The Today Show had Jay Leno on so he could promote the next season of his television show, Jay Leno’s Garage, which premiered last night on CNBC. So I guess they figured: while Jay is on, why not ask him about cars? This is where my column comes in.
Earlier this week, I wrote a column where I (half-jokingly) suggested that more cars should have sliding doors, in the spirit of minivans and a small Peugeot called the 1007. In the column, I provided several excellent reasons for this, like the fact that sliding doors make it easier to get out in parking lots, and sliding doors help avoid door dings. I also talked a lot about French people.
So they asked Jay if he thinks more cars should have sliding doors, and Jay laughed about it, and then he mentioned a few cars that do have sliding doors, like the BMW Z1 and (though he couldn’t remember its name) the Kaiser Darrin. Unfortunately, Jay didn’t say anything about French people.
But I am not deterred, because, as of this moment, I am now officially famous. The whole thing was tremendously exciting, and I now think there is a 4 percent chance Jay Leno knows my name, and not just that I am some annoying guy on that one car website.
This is what it’s gotta be like to be Ballaban.
@DougDeMuro is the author of Bumper to Bumper and Plays With Cars, which his mother says are “fairly decent.” He worked as a manager for Porsche Cars North America before quitting to become a writer.