Ferrari has pretty much always been the preferred brand of the dedicated petrolhead rock star. From Elvis, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Ozzy Osborne, Rod Stewart and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason to Pharrell Williams, Ludacris, Post Malone and even Justin Bieber, generations and genres may come and go but Ferrari is always there.
Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay is one of the UK's best-known music-star Ferrari fans. Jay Kay and his cars have often been in the news, and his black Ferrari Enzo particularly so. The singer acquired his Enzo (chassis number 132051) in 2003, straight from Ferrari. He reportedly paid £400,000 for the car, which was considered a bargain price at the time.
In 2009, an inebriated chef from the Brudenell Hotel in Aldeburgh, Suffolk became enraged at Jay Kay's association with a mutual acquaintance. The jealous cook's emotional tension found a convenient outlet in the form of Jay Kay's Ferrari Enzo. A rock thrown through the car's window left the musician with a £10,000 repair bill, and the chef with a 20-week prison sentence for criminal damage. At £10,000, Ferrari must use very special glass…
The rest of the car doesn't come cheap either. Jay Kay may have snapped up the car for a bargain price in 2003, but the resale price, when he sold it recently, is believed to have been more than £3 million. Not bad for a publicly vandalised, used car.
More in the stable
Of course, the disposal of his Enzo doesn't leave poor Jay Kay Ferrari-less. The most recent tally we know of indicates that he still has:
- a Rosso Corsa (red), 1992, F40
- a Grigio (silver grey), 1967, 275 GTB/4 (which was previously finished in Ferrari's Giallo yellow)
- a Verde Pino (green), 1965 275 GTS.
It seems that the cars that get the most attention are the ones that Jay Kay chooses to let go. The Enzo, as we have seen, originally made the headlines for regrettable reasons. Another high-profile Ferrari that Jay Kay sold on was his unique, Signal Green, 2014 Ferrari LaFerrari. This was another car that he reputedly ordered new from Ferrari. As well as the unusual choice of colour, the LaFerrari featured the Jamiroquai logo on its steering wheel!
Divided loyalties
Despite his frequent association with Ferraris, which he undoubtedly loves, when we visited Jay Kay in 2020 to interview him for our magazine, The World of Personal Number Plates, he revealed that his favourite car was actually a royal blue, 1968 Porsche 911 S.
In addition to Ferraris and Porsches, Jay Kay (birth name Jason Cheetham) has owned some of the most coveted cars ever produced, including:
- Aston Martins
- Lamborghinis
- Rolls-Royces
- Maseratis
- Outstanding models by BMW and Mercedes
Number plates and the appeal of the old
Like many, Jay Kay prefers to see an appropriate number plate on a nice car, rather than a meaningless, styleless number assigned at random. He is not enamoured with the current UK number plate format and, just as he is often particularly fond of cars from vintage eras, such as the 1970s, he also prefers the older suffix and prefix registration numbers.
Regtransfers has supplied a number of great plates to Jay Kay over the years, including:
- "JAM" numbers: making abbreviated reference to his band's name.
- JAY 1K: which we photographed on his purple Ferrari GTC4Lusso.
