Being Magnum P.I.
Tom Selleck was good, but the real star of Magnum P.I. was his Ferrari. 40 years on, CAR’s Mark Walton pulls on the Hawaiian shirt and fires up the V8
Back in the ’80s, I didn’t want to be Kevin Keegan or Nigel Mansell. I didn’t fantasise about being Luke Skywalker or Ozzy Osbourne or the man whose hand went up Basil Brush. No, I wanted to wear a flowery shirt, drive a Ferrari and live in Hawaii. I wanted to be Thomas
Magnum, private investigator.
Magnum P.I. arrived on British TV in 1981, which makes me feel old but also nostalgic and fuzzy inside. This show had a profound effect on me, a boy who was just deciding that cars were more interesting than dinosaurs. I loved the way it ‘normalised’ the 308 GTS – the way Magnum didn’t actually own the car, he only borrowed it; and he used it as his daily driver, which made the Ferrari seem so much more real.
Wait, you’re telling me you don’t know what I’m talking about? Okay, let’s rewind. Magnum P.I. premiered just as cop drama Hawaii Five-O ended its 12-year run. That’s no coincidence – Magnum was created, in part, to make use of the studio facilities that had been established in Hawaii. The plot followed the adventures of Thomas Magnum, played by 35-year-old Tom Selleck. Magnum was a Vietnam veteran who’d dropped
of the Navy Seals to become a private investigator, living on a beachside estate owned by the wealthy, mysterious Robin Masters (voiced by Orson Welles but never seen on screen). The estate, Robin’s Nest, was run by a former British army ocer, Higgins, played by John Hillerman (who was actually Texan). The quarrelsome relationship between Magnum and Higgins formed the backbone of the show: Higgins was the stiff military man, Magnum a laid-back rule-breaker who bunked in the guest house and borrowed the Ferrari for free.
Magnum was at the premium end of American TV popcorn. The scripts were clever and funny, the plots grown-up and complex, the tropical scenery and ocean views so glamorous and exotic. The series was shot on high-quality film, giving it a cinematic look compared to other Saturday night dross like The A-Team or Knight Rider. Watching the early episodes again, it’s striking how Magnum P.I. really began as a ’70s show. Most of the cars are classic ’70s Detroit iron, the street scenes full of square-edged Buick Regals and Lincoln Town Cars, and all the extras feel like they’ve just walked off the set of Saturday Night Fever.
But two things really haven’t aged: Selleck’s look was styled around a beach-bum sports-jock, with his sneakers and jeans, the Vuarnet sunglasses and those Hawaiian shirts. And, of course, the Ferrari – though there wasn’t just one Ferrari, because the model changed over the show’s eight seasons. In 1980, Magnum drove a 1979 carburettor model, switching to a fuel-injected GTSi in Season 2. In the final couple of years, it was a four-valve QV or ‘quattrovalvole’ model – though you’d need to be a geek to spot the differences. (Okay, seeing as we’re all geeks here: over the years changes included different door mirrors, louvred bonnet vents and the introduction of a small black ‘wing’ behind the cabin.)
The 308’s 2.9-litre V8 struggled to put out 200bhp in its fuel-injected guise, rising to just 236bhp in the later four-valve configuration. I didn’t realise how puny the 308 was back then – but I honestly didn’t care. Still don’t: the 308 GTB/GTS remains one of the most beautiful and underrated Ferraris ever built, a slender arrowhead of a car that blends the organic curves of the Dino with the crisp, paper-fold sharpness of a Countach. ⊲
SELLECK’S LOOK WAS STYLED AROUND A BEACH BUM SPORTS JOCK, WITH HIS SNEAKERS AND JEANS AND THOSE HAWAIIAN SHIRTS
I DON’T CARE HOW PUNY THE 308’S POWER OUTPUT IS IT REMAINS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND UNDERRATED FERRARIS EVER BUILT
Embarrassingly, I have to admit I used to wear the sunglasses and Hawaiian shirts back in the ’80s, and I have the pictures to prove it. I remember wondering why my ‘Magnum look’ never quite matched Selleck’s; something to do with my scrawny, feeble, beanpole shoulders and stringy teenage limbs perhaps.
And I never got to drive a Magnum 308. As a kid it seemed impossible – growing up in North Yorkshire, it felt like the nearest Ferrari was at least 300 miles away in every direction. Then the 308 was facelifted to become the blunt-nosed 328 in 1985, which in turn was replaced by the uglier, sidestraked 348 in 1989. By the time I became a magazine road tester in the 1990s, Magnum’s Ferrari was already a 15-year-old classic.
But its appeal never diminished, and because it remains one of the more affordable Ferraris I still occasionally surf the net, looking at left-hookers for under 50 grand, rarer right-hand-drive cars for £60k-£80k. Just browsing, of course… But maybe the anniversary of Magnum P.I. is just the excuse I need? To travel back in time to the ’80s, and finally live out a lifelong dream? All I need to do is find an owner willing to lend me a car, dust down the Hawaiian shirt and start growing a moustache.
The Magnum P.I. theme tune is swirling around my brain as we pull up outside John Lawson’s house to find his beautiful 308 GTS waiting for us. John is a graphics editor, with 35 years of newspaper experience creating everything from economic bar charts to a cutaway drawing of Trump’s presidential limo. John shows us the project he did as a final-year student, when he trained as an illustrator: it’s a beautiful cutaway of a 308 GTB. ‘I wrote to Ferrari, asking for technical drawings and they sent me this,’ John says, unfolding an amazing blueprint of the 308. What a souvenir.
John has been a Ferrari fan and 308 devotee ever since. ‘Then the chancellor, George Osborne, allowed people to take cash out of their pension funds back in 2015,’ he tells me. ‘Remember all those headlines, about how ⊲