The Grand Tour

James May Shows Off his Inner Magnum PI with Recent Purchase

Earlier this year, James May announced that he would be putting his beloved Rolls-Royce Corniche up for auction. This announcement caused a bit of a stir, but not for the reason you might think. It got a big reaction out of people because of the peculiar reason he’s decided to let it go. In a post on DriveTribe, he explained, “And now I’ve decided that my 1972 Rolls-Royce Corniche has to go, because I’ve become allergic to it. And I mean this. If I drive it for more than half an hour I start itching, and then have to boil all my clothes.”

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May didn’t wait too long before replacing it with what he called another “interesting” old car. He took to DriveTribe again this week to introduce his newest ride with a challenge. He posted some slightly obscure and blurry close-ups of the vehicle and asked people to give a guess as to what it was. Naturally, he wanted everyone to be as precise as possible.

Ferrari 308GTB

Per request, he received tons of feedback, a little over 200 guesses in total. They ranged from a wide variety of early Lamborghinis to a myriad of different Ferraris. Finally, one lucky eagle-eyed participant was named by James as the “non-winner.” What did he guess? A Ferrari 308GTB.

Ferrari 308GTB

Let’s take a look then at what Mr. May has bought. The Ferrari 308GTB was in production from 1975-1985. It was styled by much celebrated Pininfarina designer, Leonardo Fioravanti, who was responsible for many of the most popular Ferrari body-styles of the day. This mid-engined V-8 powered sports car is what’s known as a berlinetta, which in Italian means “little saloon.” Saloon referring here to what we in American would call a sedan.

With that sorted out, we just have one question left. Will we be seeing it anytime soon on The Grand Tour? May’s Corniche made several appearances on Top Gear over the years, including a cheap car challenge where he pitted it against Jeremy’s 1963 Grosser Mercedes.

Either way, let’s hope that Captain Slow doesn’t turn out to be terribly allergic to his new Ferrari as well!

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