Magnum Car Chassis #'s

I went through our old files and found all the Magnum cars that came through Steve Harris Imports. We purchased these cars from Ferrari North America and they came with the letter confirming their use on the show. Here they are for whomever keeps track of theses cars:

#38527 '82 308 retailed 4/13/84

#45579 '83 308 retailed 7/3/84

#45607 '83 308 retailed 8/25/84

#51941 '84 308 retailed 5/31/85

We also had the Vacation car #40285 '82 308 retailed 7/11/83

 

That is cool, my 82 308 is #38567, only 40 away from the one used on the show.

 

Thanks for that info! Cool stuff!

Anyone know about the carbed ones?

 

Question is: Where are they now????????

James in Denver

 

exactly.

This site is so big that we should know the owners by now, but nobody seems to know where any of these cars or the earlier 2V inj and carbed cars are now.

I swear that more than a couple of those cars are owned by someone who has no idea what they have.

 

Actually it was only 20 cars behind of it on the assembly line. Remember Ferrari were using only odd numbers back then.

 

Found Magnum's '79 and one of the '83's!

Magnum's carb'd 308 is at the Cars of the Stars Museum in the UK. I think Larry Manetti (Rick) had bought this one after they used it in the series.

Pics of it are at the bottom of this page:
http://www.madmaxmovies.com/cars/interceptor/history4.html

A South Dakota museum has one of the '83s it looks like, but no pics on their site.
Link: http://www.celebritycasinos.com/Celebrity_NelsonGarage.html

Read here on fchat that the '84 was bought by some guy in NC and ended up getting totalled or something. A crying shame if true.

-Mikey

 

I don't want to sound dumb here, because I'm not as educated as you guys on this. My question is, does anyone know exactly how many total cars were used in the series? Are these serial numbers above just a few of the cars? I heard rumor that Tom bought all major cast members 308's when the show concluded. Any truth to this? Anybody know why Tom didn't keep one himself?

Thanks for any insight.

 

The used a bunch, not just the few listed here. One was for still shots. one was for scenes with him driving, etc.
It wasn't 308's that Selleck bought for the cast, it was Prosche 928's. That was the car he really liked. FNA did give him one back around 82 or 83 for doing so much advertising. I actually remember seeing that on ET way back then. I can't imagine why he would keep it since he barely fit in it with the top in and, besides, could anyone imagine him driving one around town back in California after the show ended? It would seem like a joke.

 

Thanks Tommy that slipped my mind, that's even cooler!

 

The West Coast vice president at FNA, at the time, mentioned the show used two cars each season, one for still shots and one for moving shots. The cars we had were the "motion" cars and each had between 2 -3,000 miles at time of delivery. So there are many more Magnum cars than the ones I listed. I forgot to mention we purchased the '82 car from Larry Manetti. We also sold Tom and Larry Mondial cabs (1983 or '84) for their personal use, I will have to find those chassis #'s as well.

 

Larry's was black wasn't it?

 

Thank You for all the responses. I now have a better understanding. I just always thought that it would be a thrill of a lifetime to actually own one of the cars.

 

There was a 308 they claimed to be a Magnum car on display at Universal Studios in Hollywood a few years ago. It was in rough shape.

The original Magnum car was a 1979. It was recently sold by Independent Ferrari Service of Costa Mesa I believe.

 

I have seen a picture of that car. It looked like a Euro model. I don't even think it had a motor judging by the way the rear was raised up.

 

I know there were two of those. One of the funniest C&D stories was its trip across the US to be used in a movie. It was Apr or May 1980 issue. P. J. O'Rouke drove it from NJ to LA. It wasn't until the last paragraph that you find out the name of the movie will be "Don't Eat The Snow In Hawaii". GREAT article and really really funny. It starts out with him stuck in football traffic right here in my hometown of Birmingham AL. He wrote that it was Alabama Crimson Tide vs South Carolina Gamecocks. Problem is we hadn't played SC since 1967. I think it was the Hall of Fame Classic which was between South Carolina and Missouri. I actually went to that game. The date would have been 29 Dec 1979.

I know, who cares, right? I just think it's cool that THAT car drove right past my house (I live about a mile from the interstate) on the way to start Magnum and put many of us in front of the computer reading this very post some 27 years later.

 

Thats actually pretty cool, too bad you didn't see it way back when.

James in Denver

 

I remember on about my forth drive in a friends 308, I began to look at people in thier yards, or along the street as we drove past. They would be going in or out of a door, stooping to pick up somthing, whatever, but they were looking in totally the wrong direction to see a Ferrari go past thier house.

It made me wonder how many drove past me somewhere at various times of my life that I never seen. If a Ferrari passes by and you dont see it, was it ever there?

 

The world thinks of Magnum as a 308 guy but he buys a Mondial in real life. He's 6'4" so I suppose that was a a major consideration.

 

Actually, as I mentioned earlier he is (was?) a Porsche 928 guy. Larry Manetti's book tells how Selleck LOVED that car. Bought one for the whole cast at the end of the series.