Can you imagine owning 181 vehicles? If that already seems like a ton of maintenance and upkeep to you, now imagine having to get most of those vehicles to pass a smog test every few years. That’s the reality that Jay Leno, talk show host and car collector, faces.<\/p>\n
Boo-hoo, I know.<\/p>\n
For years, Leno has been fighting for California car collectors<\/a> (aka himself) to get a bit of a break on smog tests. Not only do the costs add up, but many older vehicles can’t even reach those smog stations or use newer smog-testing equipment. When will the tortures of owning 181 vehicles end?<\/p>\n On August 13th, the bill known as Leno’s Law cleared the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Which matters more than it sounds, because that’s the exact committee that quietly strangled the last version.<\/p>\n “This is a great day for California’s car enthusiasts and for everyone who believes our history is worth preserving,” said Senator Dave Cortese<\/a>, who wrote the bill. He added that California has a legendary automotive heritage worth celebrating while still protecting the environment.<\/p>\n Cortese is a Democrat. His coauthor, Senator Shannon Grove, is a Republican. Days before the hearing they held a classic car rally outside the Capitol with SEMA to pressure the committee, which means this smog fight has managed to unite California politics. Bipartisanship, courtesy of old cars.<\/p>\n Fair question, because “smog exemption for classic cars” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in most coverage.<\/p>\n Right now, California exempts gas vehicles from model year 1975 and older. Everything from 1976 on has to pass a biennial smog check, forever, no matter how pristine or how rarely it moves.<\/p>\n SB 1392 would fully exempt vehicles built before the 1981 model year, both at renewal and at sale. To qualify, the car needs a historical vehicle license plate and collector vehicle insurance. That’s the screening mechanism lawmakers demanded so the thing didn’t become a loophole for anyone with a smoky 1979 beater.<\/p>\n Then it expands. One model year gets added every year starting in 2028, until the cutoff reaches pre-1986 vehicles by 2032.<\/p>\n The program is completely optional, and it doesn’t touch any existing exemption. If your car is already exempt, nothing changes.<\/p>\n So the actual window here is model years 1976 through 1985. Which brings me to my favorite thing about this entire saga.<\/p>\n Think about what’s in a collection like Leno’s. Prewar classics, 1950s and 60s American iron, a Stanley Steamer, plus modern hypercars.<\/p>\n The pre-1976 stuff? Already exempt. Always has been. The McLaren F1 and the modern machinery? Nowhere near eligible.<\/p>\n What’s left is the malaise era. Nineteen seventy-six through 1985. The catalytic converter years. The 165-horsepower Corvette years. Cars whose emissions equipment is now so obsolete that finding a shop that can even test them properly has become its own scavenger hunt.<\/p>\n That’s the group this saves. Not the priceless stuff, the awkward stuff. The cars nobody writes love letters about, owned by people with one project car in the garage rather than 181 of them.<\/p>\n Which is genuinely the strongest argument for the bill, and also very funny, given whose name is on it.<\/p>\n Here’s where I temper the excitement. This is Leno’s Law 2.0.<\/p>\n The first attempt, SB 712, passed the state Senate 32 to 3 in June 2025 and cleared the Assembly Transportation Committee. Then Assembly Appropriations parked it in the suspense file that August and simply never took it out. No vote, no debate, no funeral. The California Air Resources Board’s own bill tracker lists it under one word: dead.<\/p>\n Cortese and Grove reintroduced it as SB 1392 in February. It passed the Senate again, cleared Assembly Transportation 13-0, and now it’s gotten past the trapdoor that got the last one.<\/p>\n Still ahead: a full Assembly floor vote, a concurrence vote back in the Senate, and the governor’s signature. The legislature has until the end of the month.<\/p>\n Opposition hasn’t gone anywhere either. Public health and environmental groups are still against it, arguing that older vehicles pollute disproportionately even when driven rarely. Supporters counter that pre-1981 cars make up less than half a percent of vehicles on California roads, and that the collector car industry is worth over $40 billion to the state and supports roughly 150,000 jobs. Even the FIA sent a letter backing the bill, which is not a sentence I expected to write about a smog check.<\/p>\n Despite being one of the capitals of car culture in the world, California has super strict vehicle laws. The state is known for low rider cruises, collector cars driving up the coast, and luxury supercar meetups. At the same time, California has spent decades passing regulations that make owning, modifying, and driving gasoline-powered vehicles more complicated.<\/p>\n The most obvious example is California’s emissions program. Gasoline-powered vehicles from 1976 and newer generally fall under the state’s Smog Check requirements, with inspections required for registration in applicable circumstances. Vehicles also have to meet California’s emissions standards, which can make certain modifications that are perfectly legal elsewhere illegal in the Golden State.<\/p>\n Then there is the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, which has developed its own vehicle emissions and zero-emission standards under the state’s special authority under the federal Clean Air Act. The rules have become increasingly ambitious, with the Advanced Clean Cars II program establishing stricter requirements for new vehicles and targeting zero-emission or plug-in hybrid vehicles in new-car sales by 2035. The state is even offering its own incentive program<\/a> for those who switch to EVs.<\/p>\n For car enthusiasts, the effect goes beyond what sits on a dealer’s lot. California’s emissions rules can complicate engine swaps, exhaust modifications, tuning, and other changes that are common parts of enthusiast culture. The state also has regulations governing everything from aftermarket emissions equipment to vehicle software, and modified or unapproved software can cause a vehicle to fail a Smog Check.<\/p>\n Let’s also not forget the incredible amount of fees and taxes car owners have to pay. This has led many drivers to register their supercars in Montana, avoiding thousands of extra dollars just upon purchase. However, California has been cracking down<\/a> on Montana plates, angry it’s missing out on all that extra money from supercar purchases. I usually don’t side with rich people, but I gotta give them this one. Must be tough owning so many supercars you don’t wanna pay tax on. The horror.<\/p>\n California has also increasingly focused on reducing how much people drive, rather than simply making individual cars cleaner. State planning documents discuss strategies such as reducing vehicle miles traveled, encouraging alternative transportation, regulating parking, and even exploring congestion pricing.<\/p>\n None of this means California is literally banning cars or that enthusiasts cannot enjoy them. Far from it. The state remains home to enormous automotive events, famous roads, and a huge enthusiast community. But the direction of policy is unmistakable: California increasingly views the automobile as something that should be cleaner, more tightly regulated and, in some circumstances, used less.<\/p>\n Which is exactly why a narrow carve-out for 1970s and 80s cars turned into a two-year legislative brawl. So, does a well-maintained 1982 Camaro deserve a pass, or is that just the thin end of the wedge?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can you imagine owning 181 vehicles? If that already seems like a ton of maintenance and upkeep to you, now … <\/p>\nOkay, but what does Leno’s Law actually do?<\/h2>\n
The law barely helps Jay Leno<\/h2>\n
It’s not law yet, and last year proves why<\/h2>\n
California’s car culture under attack<\/h2>\n