Thanks for the pics. The red/black interior has always puzzled me. Never was a car used on camera in the series with black interior yet your chassis has persisted as one of the show cars over the years among us. The logical assumption is the car seen in the pilot cannot be it. There would have been no reason to have more than one of them around in the very beginning, especially when you factor the costs and gamble of pitching a pilot to a studio as well as the fact that they first wanted a 928. Why get two? When Ferrari handed that one over, there was no "magnum mania" like later when everyone knew the car either. Why risk two$50,000 cars if you are FNA or a dealer "loaning" one? Why buy two $50,000 cars only to risk the show being rejected if you are a producer? Of course later things changed. Sometimes they needed two in the same scene (Digger Doyle) but even her's was red tan.. Many other reasons why several were needed as things moved along with the series. But that black interior... I don't get it. Never have. You certainly own something very damn interesting.
Well the person I bought it from did say the interior was redone. I can not imagine they changed colors though. However the original factory paint was yellow. Yes yellow. That just made this story more interesting. Sorry I forgot to mention that. I found that out after I bought it. I know this because when I had the door panels apart to fix the door locks the inner panels were yellow. There is also a small chip on deck lid that clearly shows that the first layer of paint was in fact yellow. My personnel believe is that my car is one of the first if not the first car they owned. Maybe they got a deal on a yellow one and resprayed it. Also in the beginning they could have used a tan leather paint. I'm talking in the very beginning with a limited budget. The person I bought it from did say the car was resprayed not to long ago but they just re did the red. Also the engine bay was redone in all black. Thank you so much for all your help and knowledge. I'm am really learning a lot! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
My to cents in this, when I was a kid, the autorama came to Seattle center, in the 80's, and they had a magnum pi car there, on display. I took a camcorder of it for like 15 minutes of it, every inch, even the letter of it. Big fan. The interior was a dark brown and black, very dark brown seats thru the window. This car was going to Washington, D.C. , to the smithsoinan.
Well, those seats are not the original seats- they're from a later injected car. The originals don't have that stitched pattern, they should have a stripe section vertically down the seat back and cushion. In the show, the car had the tan seats with the proper pattern, so the seats were replaced at some point. Maybe at that time that the black seats were acquired was when the door panels were changed also.
Well, Gordon is obviously right, of course; the actual seats of the car today are not seats from a carbed car, but the design introduced with the injected models. Interesting... Rgds
They modified the seats on the Magnum cars so that Tom Selleck could fit in the car so when they were done with it and wanted to sell they probably figured it would sell better with regular seats.
I am going to try and scan in, or photograph and post, or whatever an article you would be interested in and it best illustrates my confusion over the chassis (yours) with black (according to Matthias). I mentioned it and linked to it in another post earlier. Car & Driver, about June 1980. by P.J. O'Rourke. It is about his adventure driving accross the USA from NJ to CA in a new Ferrari 308. Great read and as I have mentioned many times before, it opens with his being stuck in football traffic here in Birmingham. There are enough pictures to clearly see it is a red/tan carbed model, including when it was in NJ (in other words, they didn't drive a yellow/black 308 that was later painted. Of course, it could have been changed before they picked it up, but why not just get a red /tan to begin with? Painting it yellow to red is no big deal but I cannot imagine why anyone would go to the extra trouble of changing the interior, that just makes no sense on any level. What did they do, order it from Italy, ship it in and have someone install it?? Pull it from another car? Why not just use THAT car and paint IT red? 1000% easier. But I still enjoy this mystery At the very end of the article, he wrote that after dropping the 308 off in Los Angeles, it was on it's way to Hawaii to be used in a movie called "Don't Eat The Snow In Hawaii". So there is no doubt that car in that story was the one in the pilot episode.
okay, here we go Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
It's quite funny reading how he says that it's a sad ending to the story as the car ended up in a movie called "Dont Eat The Snow From Hawaii!" - When you consider that it actually ended up being one of the most famous Ferrari's in the World and launched a Million dreams of owning one! It's unusual for P.J.O'Rourke to get something so wrong! (Somewhere in My attic I have an hilarious magazine story that he wrote about the delights of pick-up ownership and how it's the worlds first beer guided vehicle! It goes on to mention how they defy vehicle physics by over-steering everywhere despite all the weight being up front, how they automatically want to head into the woods at the slightest incident, and it explains that what four wheel drive actually does, is allow all four wheels to dig down into the dirt when the vehicle is stuck in the woods, rather than just two wheels!).
Thanks for sharing. Some great writing. I am surprised it is not included in the compilation of 308 magazine articles: Ferrari 308 & Mondial Ultimate Portfolio 1974-1985. This book has several other Car & Driver articles, so it is odd that it is absent.
Thank you so much! There is no way I would have found that without you! I look forward to hanging this in my garage!
Bringing this thread back up again: Having now acquired the 1st and 2nd seasons on DVD and watched season 1, I concede that in the early episodes people did notice and mention the Ferrari more than I thought. I also have to say that in the episode: J "Digger" Doyle, Erin Gray in the 308 GTS was almost as perfect as Christy Brinkley was in National Lampoon's Vacation! (Two of My childhood dream girls in My dream Ferrari! ). Watching the opening credits, something I've never noticed before in the scene when Magnum power-slides the Ferrari onto the road from the grass, is that just before he gets onto the tarmac , he glances back down the road at the car that has just passed by in the opposite direction as if he was wondering what it was doing there! [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvjzSu9RIcI]Magnum, P.I. Opening Credits (1980) - YouTube[/ame]
I recently finished the entire series having not seen it since it aired. They had a lot of metaphysical themes and a lot of fun with a few of the episodes. In the extras they talk about this and how the show followed itself as modern viewers needed but I disagreed with them on this; Rick's sister was murdered in one episode and he blamed Magnum, this was never mentioned again and other terrible things happened to the characters that were never mentioned again. Over all though a fun show that has stood the test of time.
Apart from Magnums tiny shorts with his Hawaiian shirt tucked into it! I agree with you that the shows were more single events than a continuing storyline across the various episodes as they seem to imply it was. For example, Magnum meets all these gorgeous women, who after either making out on the sofa or an implied night in bed together, are never heard of again! ("Digger" Doyle for one! Now I would have quite liked to have seen her in a few more episodes! - Purely for continuity reasons of course! Ahem!!! ). They could have done a great episode where Magnum was having to dodge some of the various women he has known who have come back to see him at the same time! And just how much did Magnum owe TC for all the fuel and repairs that his helicopter must have needed over the years? It's got to be said though that it was a great blend of action, comedy and romance, with some great characters who really did work well together. The Friction between Magnum and Higgins, and how they annoyed each other but deep down actually liked each other was superbly done! It's also good to see that the characters like Rick and TC were not just token roles for the occasional episode, they were incorporated at every opportunity. Being English, I also like to spot when John Hillerman reveals his true American origins! For example, in one episode he describes a WW2 Japanese plane as being made of aluminum! - Now I don't care how long he's supposed to have lived away from England, no self respecting Englishman would ever call it aluminum! They would always refer to it as aluminium! (To be fair to him though, apart from a rare slip up such as that, he does a bloody good job at being English! ). And let's not forget the biggest reason I watched Magnum p.i when I was growing up: That beautiful Ferrari! Even today I rate episodes without the Ferrari as being a below par episode! My whole love of Ferrari stems from seeing a 308 GTS in town when I was @ 9 years old, watching Gilles Villeneuve race in F1 on TV and Watching Magnum! After that you could forget Lamborghini's, Porsche's, Lotus' and everything else, the only sportscars that mattered to Me were Ferrari's! - And that statement stands as much today as it did back then!
Thanks for posting this, Tommy. I didn't spot it before as I have next to no interest in this tv show. The scans deserve a thread of their own or in a sticky collection of such articles. Great writing. I presume that this is not included in other published collections because the author retained some copyright. Journalists generally give w/w copyright forever to the publications that hire them. Well known authors (or their agents) can negotiate better.
I watched all the shows on netflix this year, all 8 seasons. I have to say the first few seasons were more edgy when he actually killed people. The later ones were more fashion statements than edgy. That was my first exposure to the brand Ferrari. Wow, a life time ago. Where did the time go?
I was sitting in front of the TV the night the pilot episode aired. I saw the previews and remember the red car - I actually thought it was a Lamborghini or something at first so I watched the show to see it (I was a 7th grader at the time). I never missed an episode. Before we got a VCR I taped some on cassettes to replay the engine (still have them - Feb 1981 is the earliest). Later I taped them on Beta (still have them) and finally on VHS (threw those out finally). I dubbed the beta on DVD about 10 years ago just because they were the oldest I had with the period commercials. I skipped a fraternity meeting when I was a pledge to watch the last episode ( The one VHS tape I actually kept) when I was in college back in 1988. To this day I think the first two to three seasons were the absolute best.
May have been posted before (article from 2010) but here's a "Where are they now?" on the "Magnum P.I." cast. 'Magnum P.I.' Cast: Where Are They Now? Image Unavailable, Please Login
wow i really enjoyed reading that article... reminded me of many times in my youth that I thought that whatever it was i was doing, was the most divine experience of a person's life. And in particular... when i was working at Ford, I drove one of our Ford GT press cars from LA up the coast to Monterey... before the car was on sale to customers. I remember the looks, the conversations, the envy everywhere I went in that car. And the Military Policeman who was waiting for me as I cruised into Vandenburg Air Force Base... because a "concerned citizen" had telephoned about a red sportscar driving at intergalactic speeds up Hwy 1 south of Lompoc. There was not a happier person in the world on that weekend than me.
