If you like fast cars and expensive cars, you can’t really enjoy good food because you can never park your car further away than you can see it and, in America at least, you can never entrust it to the valet parking at a restaurant. I know, it’s a job I used to do.

So consequently, if I am driving one of my beloved cars, I have to eat in my car or in some fast food place. But eating in fast food places is not without its problems either. I was driving the Mercedes SLR McLaren and pulled into a drive-through McDonald’s. I ordered my usual, two double hamburgers without cheese. So they say: “Those are double cheeseburgers, sir.” So I say: “I’ll pay for double cheeseburgers but I just want them without cheese.”

I get the meal, drive away, park up the SLR and open the food and they are cheeseburgers. So I go back and the girl at McDonald’s says: “We are not allowed to take the cheese off, you have to do it yourself.” So I ask to see the manager. He says: “I’m sorry, Mr Leno. Here’s a bunch of Happy Meal coupons.”

A month or two goes by and I’m driving round again. I see the coupons sitting in the car, so I go into McDonald’s and order a meal. I give them the two coupons and the guy is: “Sir, where did you get these? Why do you have two? Can you pull off to the side please, sir?”

Now, I’m in a McLaren and a guy in a paper hat is lecturing me: “Can you wait here please, sir. Sir, please wait here.”

So now I am boxed in and people are coming over, looking in the car and I feel like Peter Sellers in that scene from The Pink Panther when they are naked. People around are muttering: “Did he steal something?”

Twenty minutes goes by and the guy in the paper hat comes back out. “Sir, we will honour the coupons. This time.”

Now, I do not need to worry about such things when I want a burger. After telling this story on The Tonight Show I got a gift in the mail from that great rival to McDonald’s, Burger King. It’s a Burger King gold credit card entitling me to free burgers!

So I pull into a Burger King a few days ago and thought I’d try out my new Burger King credit card. So I order my food and the guy says: “That’s $11.” So I say: “Fine, here you go,” and hand him the card. His reaction was amazing: “Whoa . . . where’d you get this?”

He was not impressed that I was on The Tonight Show or even that I was driving a Porsche Carrera GT. He was more impressed with this piece of plastic. Now I can go to Burger King whenever I like anywhere in the free world because I’ve got my Burger King credit card. It’s crazy.

As for the perfect car to use for my trips to Burger King? Well, fast food is excessive and you need an excessive car. I have a 67 Chrysler Crown Imperial coupé. It has a 440 engine in it. It is enormous, one of the biggest American cars of the 1960s. It actually seats seven people . . . for dinner.

So it is perfect for inviting friends to share my free dining, because I sure can’t go with them in a nice car to a fancy restaurant.

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