In May 2015, James May was, by his own description, an unemployed middle-aged man from Hammersmith. Jeremy Clarkson had just been sacked by the BBC after punching a producer, Top Gear was imploding, and May had no confirmed income. He bought a Ferrari anyway.
Writing in The Sunday Times, May recounted the moment with his characteristic self-awareness:
"Hang on a minute. Unemployed middle-aged man from Hammersmith orders the last-ever Ferrari 458 Speciale, in dark blue. What on earth was I thinking of? Just moments before I signed the order form and committed myself totally and irreversibly, I had a sudden change of heart. I ordered it in bright orange."
The car cost him approximately £208,000 to £250,000, depending on which options he ticked. Gold wheels. A racing stripe he noted cost roughly the same as a basic Dacia Sandero. Sat-nav. A nose-lift for speed bumps. Alcantara throughout. He forgot to specify folding mirrors, which meant getting out of the car every time he parked. For £250,000, the mirrors were manual.
The 458 Speciale was already closing its order books when May called his dealer. Ferrari agreed to build one more, specifically for him, making it the very last naturally aspirated, mid-engined V8 Ferrari of its line. That detail matters enormously to what happened next.
May framed the purchase publicly as an investment hedge. He said he could resell it immediately and get his money back, maybe even more. At the time, that read as bravado from a man rationalising an impulsive decision. In hindsight, it was a reasonable thesis.
The 458 Speciale has since become one of the most aggressively appreciating modern Ferraris on the market. According to The Classic Valuer, the average 458 Speciale currently trades at approximately £350,000, with peak auction results climbing considerably higher. At the RM Sotheby's Arizona 2025 auction, a 2015 Ferrari 458 Speciale sold for £628,014, more than three times what one cost when new, barely a decade ago, and nearly £125,000 above the previous highest price at auction.
The broader market confirms the trend. According to Classic Trader, 458 Speciale cars currently appear at asking prices ranging from around £280,000 to £400,000. The Speciale saw prices increase by 28.9% in a single year.
Against that backdrop, May's orange car, a unique specification, the final production example, with documented celebrity provenance, sits at the more valuable end of that range and arguably beyond it.
The inflation argument sharpens the picture further. According to UK CPI data via the ONS, £1 in 2015 is equivalent to approximately £1.44 in 2026, a cumulative price increase of around 44% over eleven years. Applied to May's purchase price of £230,000, simple inflation would place its real value at around £331,000 today. The car is worth more than that. Meaningfully more.
No savings account delivered 74% over the same period. The FTSE 100, with dividends reinvested, has performed respectably, but the 458 Speciale outran it too, while being considerably more entertaining to own.
There is a caveat worth stating plainly: the car is illiquid, expensive to insure, and costs real money to maintain and store. Ferrari ownership is not a straightforward substitute for a pension. Record auction results reflect exceptional examples with ideal provenance and not every Speciale commands those numbers.
But May's specific car, last of the line, bespoke spec, orange with gold wheels, zero anonymity, is exactly the kind of asset the collector market rewards. The quirks he worried about, the colour people would mock him for, the extravagance he had to justify to his partner, turned out to be the whole point.
He called it an investment while unemployed and hoping nobody would notice. Eleven years later, the numbers agree with him.
Sources: The Sunday Times via Driving.co.uk · Motoring Research · TopGearbox · The Classic Valuer · Classic Trader · Racing Green Car Storage · UK CPI via ONS / Alioth Finance