5 Incredible Cars Owned By Jamiroquai Lead Singer Jay Kay

Jason Luís Cheetham (aka "Jay Kay") is the lead singer for the funky British acid jazz band Jamiroquai. He's well known for wearing outlandish hats (something he's done since he was a young lad), and his outrageous car collection. It's been reported that Cheetham has — at one time or another — owned more than 100 cars over the years. 

In a 2010 episode of "Top Gear" (a show he's been on a few times), Jay Kay said he had 37 vehicles, including motorcycles. In February 2018, he auctioned off a 2003 Suzuki GSX-R600 and a 1989 Kawasaki Z1000 (a Californian Highway Patrol replica bike like the ones seen on the TV show "CHiPs") at the Silverstone Auction's Race Retro Classic Car Sale. Then, in December 2019, Jay Kay put three rare cars up for auction at Bonham's: a 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS Lightweight Coupé version (only 200 were made), a 2004 Porsche Carrera GT, and a 2016 Ferrari F12tdf Berlinetta. In 2020 he auctioned off the first car he ever owned and the one he learned to drive in — a 1972 BMW 1602. 

Celebrity car collections are constantly changing and are as mercurial and fickle as the celebrity who owns them. For instance, Jay Kay admits that he started buying Porsches for no apparent reason. With that caveat, here are five cars that he owned at one time or another that remain "incredible."

Jay Kay's Lamborghini Diablo SE30 — painted in Viola Metallic with a blue suede interior — might be one of the least expensive cars in his entire collection (seriously). However, it still needs to be listed because of its incredible story. In what amounts to a four-minute long car chase, the music video for the band's hit "Cosmic Girl" features him behind the wheel of the Lambo while his companions are in a red Ferrari F40 chasing a black Ferrari F355 (also owned by Jay Kay), driven by what one would assume is the titular "Cosmic Girl." 

According to reports, two purple people eaters were used because the first was involved in a crash. One unconfirmed report adds details: when Jay Kay shipped the Lambo to Cabo de Gata, Spain, for filming, one of the company's employees took it for a joy drive and wrecked it beyond repair. The car in the video was actually a loaner, rented from a nearby collector.

However, in 2017 a Viola Metallic Lamborghini Diablo SE30 was put up for sale on AutoTrader U.K. (for £549,995), claiming to be Jay Kay's Lambo used in the video. Only 150 of the SE30s were made, but this right-handed driver-side version is one of only 16, making it a much rarer bull.

And why the Viola Metallic color? Jamiroquai is an amalgamation of the word "jam" and "Iroquois," named in honor of the Native American Indian tribe. The official color of the Iroquois Confederacy (now the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) is purple. Jay Kay had another Lamborghini, a Miura SV worth substantially more than the Diablo, seen in the band's music video, "Alright."

This vehicle should look familiar to anyone whose a fan of the British super-spy, James Bond, as the Aston Martin DB5 first appeared as Bond's ride in the 1964 film, "Goldfinger." It would become as much a part of the Bond franchise as any human character, appearing in six more 007 movies.

Jay Kay bought the car in 1994, and while not concours quality, the 1965 DB5 was still in great shape and only had a tick over 40,000 miles on the odometer. Plus, its provenance was well established. But it needed some work. The original owner ordered it with a Black Pearl paint job and a grey Connolly interior; however, somebody had painted it Fiesta Red.

After Jay Kay purchased it, he had the body stripped to bare metal, and all the corrosion was removed and replaced. The engine, as well as the braking system and suspension, were rebuilt to factory specifications. It was then repainted Silver Birch, the same color as Bond's famous Aston Martin.

It has a DOHC straight six-cylinder (243 cid) kicking out 282 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 280 lb.-ft. of torque. It's strapped with three SU carburetors and a full synchromesh ZF 5-speed gearbox. The top speed pegs at 142 mph and goes from zero to sixty in 7.1 seconds.

The DB5 had the looks and the fame and even had it where it counted (under the hood). Still, Jay Kay sold it off in 2005.

The basic definition of "rare" means something not found in large numbers and typically becomes extremely valuable. Such is the case with the 1955 Maserati A6G/54 2000 Frua. Only 60 of these Italian road racers were made, and Jay Kay owned one of them.

The "A" stands for Alfieri Maserati, one of the brothers who helped establish the company, while the "6" stood for their straight-six-cylinder engine. The A6G/54 was first unwrapped way back in 1954 at the Mondial de l'Automobile in Paris. It had a 121 cubic inch DOHC twin-plug inline 6-cylinder with three twin-choke Weber 36 DO4 carburetors. Mated to a 4-speed manual gearbox, it banged out 150 HP at 6000 rpm. It had an independent front suspension with wishbones, coil springs and hydraulic shock absorbers, while the live rear axle had quarter-elliptical leaf springs and hydraulic shocks.

Between 1954 and 1956, twenty-one coupes designed by Michelotti were built by Carrozzeria Allemano. Coachworks builder Frua made six coupes and twelve Gran Sport Spyders, and Zagato put together twenty "competition" fastbacks and a lone Spyder (for a total of 60). The A6G/54 was the vehicle that helped Maserati make the leap from the race track to the highway.

Jay Kay sold his A6G/54 in 2012 at a Gooding & Co. auction in Pebble Beach for $1,650,000.

[Featured image by Louis Rix via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 2.0]

The origins of the "shooting brake" stretch all the way back to late 19th century England and refer to a horse-drawn wagon that hunters used to carry around their supplies (i.e., ammunition, food, etc.) whilst roaming about the countryside looking for game. The "brake" part referred to the simple and practical fact that the wagon was small enough to break in new horses for further domesticated use.

Tom Tjaarda, who worked at Pininfarina, came up with the original design of the 2+2 330 GT that appeared at the Brussels auto show in 1964. The following year a 2+2 (chassis #7963) was built for the American market, complete with a left-hand driver setup, painted red, and shipped to Luigi Chinetti Motors in  Greenwich, Connecticut.

Chinetti was so smitten with the design that he decided to re-body the Ferrari with his own pizazz. He tabbed illustrator Robert "Bob" Peak (best known for creating the modern movie poster) to draw up the design, and had famous Italian coachbuilder, Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale, build the new body. It would be the last Ferrari Vignale worked on as Pininfarina would soon win the exclusive contract to body cars for Ferrari.

This one-off "wagon" got power from a single-cam 4.0-liter 242 cid V12 with triple-Weber carburetors while kicking out 300 horses at 6600 RPM and 288 ft.-lbs. of torque. With a top speed of just over 152 mph, it can scoot from 0-60 in 6.3 seconds, and cover the quarter mile in 14.60 seconds.

[Featured image by Edvvc via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 2.0]

Jay Kay has a propensity for collecting cars that are uber rare. His black Ferrari Enzo is no exception, as the Italian carmaker only made 400 during its short production run between 2002 and 2004. 

The Enzo is packed with a naturally aspirated 6.0-liter V12 that kicks out 651 hp and 485 lb.-ft. of torque. The top speed of 218 mph moved it from zero to sixty in 3.3 seconds. In the first year it was released (2002), it logged the fastest time by a production car at the Nürburgring track (7 minutes, 25 seconds).

Jay Kay's love for the car knows no bounds. One unconfirmed report quoted Jay Kay as saying he drove it from Rome, Italy, to Calais, France — a trip of approximately 1,000 miles — in just 13 hours. The band's song "Black Devil Car" (off its album "Dynamite") is a tribute to the car itself and includes lyrics like "Riding around in my black devil car" and "Nose so low it just scrapes the ground."

In 2009, while on a trip to Aldeburgh, Suffolk, a jealous hotel pastry chef smashed a few of the car's windows. Apparently, the two were drinking in a bar and they got into a verbal tiff over whose car was better – Jay Kay's Ferrari or the chef's Toyota Supra.

The original MSRP for the Enzo (if you were lucky enough to be invited to buy one in the first place) was around $659,0000, but today the value has escalated to an average just over $3 million.