hat started my love af-
fair with cars? I always
answer this question
with Magnum, P.I.
and the Ferrari 308
GTS, but when I think
back, it was things like Magnum, The
New Avengers with the XJS, cop shows
generally, definitely The Professionals.
I thought the RS 2000 was off the charts.
So, actually, the answer is television.
My first car was bought by my mum.
It was a Mini, registration number VJA-
879 K, in Blaze. It still exists. I tried to buy
it back last year, but they started taking
the mickey with the money. The second
car was a MkIII Triumph Spitfire, which
was stunning and didn’t really work at all,
but we fixed it and got it going.
The third car I bought was an MGB
roadster, which I couldn’t afford. I was
a mobile DJ at the time and had massive
speakers. Every other DJ had a van, but I
didn’t—I had an MGB roadster. So I used
to take six trips to go to the pubs, taking
one speaker at a time, then the records,
then the lightbox and so on. It didn’t mat-
ter, because what that meant was I got to
drive my car with the roof down.
I actually thought I had become ad-
dicted to cars later on in life, but if I think
about it, I’ve always bought cars that af-
fected my life in a negative way other than
in my car world. I couldn’t afford them,
A DAY IN THE LIFE
The new
fa c e o f
Top Gear
HE HAS THE UNENVIABLE TASK OF
REPLACING JEREMY CLARKSON.
CHRIS EVANS ON BEING HIMSELF
photography by
ALEx HOwE
they were impractical, they didn’t work
properly, the insurance was too high, all
that kind of stuff.
What makes cars special to me is the
romance, sensing some of the things my
heroes did: Steve McQueen, James Dean.
The chic, the panache. I’m not into watch-
es or clothes—I’m into cars. Last night, I
got far too excited about five cars and that
was without looking on the Internet. An
Internet car session can roll into hours.
When you own your first Ferrari, you
are in reverence of it because you think,
“Oh my God, it’s a Ferrari.” No, no...you
have got to own it—it can’t own you. I
love John Lennon, the White Album, so
I went for that. Also, Ferraris just look
stunning in white. People say, “Oh, they
shouldn’t be white.” Well, that’s because
they haven’t looked at enough Ferraris. I
struggle to appreciate any red ones nowa-
days other than the absolute classics.
I don’t regret any car decision, because
they’re all lessons. That’s the best thing
about mistakes: They’re the best lessons
in the world. Mistakes teach you how
not to do something, which is brilliant
because you can’t buy that advice. You
can pay for it, but you can’t buy it. The
most money I’ve lost on a car is $7 mil-
lion. I bought the James Coburn-owned
California Spyder for $12 million and
sold it for $5 million because it had the
wrong engine, which I didn’t know at the
W
CAR CULTURE
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