WE'VE all dreamed of owning a Ferrari, right? A red one? If you're a man of, erm, a certain age (like your correspondent…), then there's a fair chance that Magnum, P.I. played a significant role in making the Prancing Horse covetable, writes William Scholes, P.I.
The 1980s action show was part of a golden era that included Knight Rider, The A-Team and The Fall Guy and which put cars firmly at the centre of the action. Car-obsessed youngsters, who otherwise had to rely on infrequent screenings of James Bond movies for their tyre-smoking kicks, gobbled them all up. Today's 4k-streaming kids, with on-demand and YouTube, don't know how lucky they are…
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The eponymous hero of Magnum, P.I., Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV, was the epitome of a certain 1980s' cool. The show starred Tom Selleck, with Tom Selleck's hairy chest and Tom Selleck's luxuriant moustache in supporting roles, and featured helicopters, Hawaii, Aloha shirts, a Rolex GMT Master Pepsi and a talking parrot.
But the Ferrari 308 - glossily red, impossibly sleek and exotic, complete with pop-up headlamps and V8 soundtrack - was Selleck's real co-star, Magnum's trusty steed as the private investigator solved all manner of improbable mysteries.
If, like me, you've all but given up on the dream of putting a real Ferrari - never mind a Magnum-spec 308 - on your driveway, there's some good news from Playmobil.
It has added a wonderful model of Magnum's Ferrari 308 GTS Quattrovalvole ('Quattrovalvole' is simply Italian for 'four valve', but doesn't it instantly sound better than in English?) to its line-up.
The toy comes with not only a Thomas Magnum figure - complete with moustache and hairy chest peeping out from his Hawaiian shirt - but also his crew - TC, Rick, Higgins and, of course, the parrot.
Playmobil toys are highly, well, playable and mobile, and the £70 Magnum model has a removable roof, an opening engine cover and even pop-up headlamps.
It's worth noting that the first life-size Ferrari 308s had their bodywork made from fibreglass, so a plastic toy is perhaps a fitting homage (though the GTS version that Magnum drove always had steel bodywork).
