James May’s magenta 1974 Triumph Stag, the V8 convertible he drove across Zimbabwe in The Grand Tour’s farewell special, has been sold. The Collecting Cars listing closed at 19:03 UK time on October 29 and is now marked sold. The final price is only visible to logged-in users, so for now just the platform, May and one happy enthusiast know what it went for.
The buyer’s side is more interesting anyway, because the listing is unusually frank about what they’re getting.
The car itself
It’s a MkII Stag, first registered in October 1974 and wearing the plate GBV 815N. It’s right-hand drive and still has the original-spec 3.0-liter V8 driving the rear wheels through a four-speed manual. May owned it for nearly three years. The odometer reads 83,368 miles, but the seller doesn’t warrant that figure. The last recorded service was in July 2025 at an indicated 83,100 miles.
That works out to about 268 miles in more than a year. For an old V8 with an alloy head on an iron block, sitting still is a maintenance problem of its own. Seals dry out, coolant goes stale and fuel goes off.
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The listing says the car has been restored twice. The most recent job, done by the previous owner, covered the engine, gearbox and suspension. The paperwork for that work was lost during TV production. The car is understood to have been repainted by The Smallest Cog, the shop connected with Richard Hammond, and it comes with touch-up paint from the same batch. The seller also lists the flaws: panel alignment that could be better, pitting on some small chrome pieces, interior trim showing its age and a few dead dashboard bulbs. The only listed modification is a retro-style Bluetooth stereo.
Why May wanted one
The special, One for the Road, came out on Prime Video on September 13, 2024. In it, the three presenters drove through Zimbabwe in cars they had always wanted to own: Clarkson in a Lancia Montecarlo, Hammond in a Ford Capri 3-litre and May in the Stag. In Amazon’s promotional material, May explained the choice: “I had a friend whose parents had a Triumph Stag when I was a kid, and I just thought they seemed amazing.” He also noted that, despite the car’s terrible reputation, it “kept going all the way through.”
That it kept going is the surprise.
The engine everyone worries about
The Stag’s V8 was unique to the model, and early cars became known for overheating, warped cylinder heads, blown head gaskets and timing chains that stretched until valves hit pistons. Specialists have since worked out fixes for most of this: better gaskets, uprated cooling and chains replaced on a schedule instead of run until they break.
The problem for this buyer is the lost paperwork. Without it, nobody can say when the chains were last changed, what head gaskets are fitted or whether the cooling system has been upgraded. A sensible new owner will assume none of it has been done. That means fresh timing chains and tensioners, a full coolant flush with the correct inhibitor, a radiator flow check and a close watch on the temperature gauge for the first few hundred miles. That’s cheap compared with rebuilding a head.
Insurance and registration
Insurers will see a famous name and a blank service history. Keep the invoice and the V5C chain, then ask for agreed-value cover once a specialist has looked it over.
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On the legal side, UK historic vehicle rules mean cars built more than 40 years ago can be exempt from vehicle tax. They can also skip the annual MOT if they haven’t been substantially changed. Being exempt doesn’t make the car roadworthy, though, and the owner is still legally responsible for its condition. For a Stag whose recent mechanical history is unknown, a voluntary MOT is cheap reassurance.
Clarkson is selling too
May isn’t the only presenter selling. Clarkson’s Montecarlo from the same special goes to Iconic Auctioneers’ NEC sale on November 14, along with his Alfa Romeo GTV6 and Lincoln Continental Mark V. All three are offered without reserve. Two of the three finale cars changing hands within a few weeks of each other will give the market a rare side-by-side test of what Grand Tour fame is worth.
Shopping for a Stag? Skip the famous one. A dull example with a fat folder of receipts beats a magenta one with a missing file, even if May never drove it. Would you take the TV car and its mystery engine, or the boring one with proof?
Images Via: collectingcars.com
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