5 Cars Owned By Coldplay's Guy Berryman That Prove He Has Great Taste
As well as being the bassist for rock band Coldplay, Guy Berryman is an avid car collector. But instead of filling his garage in the English countryside with the latest, greatest hypercars — or indeed playing it safe with a collection that looks like everyone else's — Berryman likes to go his own way.
This is a collection that consists mostly of European sports cars from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, but also features the relatively modern Bugatti Veyron. It's a collection that began with his father's Triumph TR3, which the Coldplay star acquired in his twenties, he told The Rake.
Since then, and with the phenomenal success of Coldplay — nine U.K. number one albums and over 100 million sales — Berryman's car collection has expanded. It features a restored Jaguar E-Type, several classic Ferraris, a one-of-nine Porsche 356, and a storied Italian curiosity in the form of the Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada.
There's also a Lamborghini Miura, a 1968 Porsche 911, an Alpine A220 that raced at Le Mans, and a Lancia Flaminia Sport Zagato that Berryman says is unique, owing to its factory-fitted covered headlights.
Bugatti Veyron
It's an unusual thing to say, but his Bugatti Veyron might be Berryman's least remarkable car — such is the eccentricity of everything else in his garage. Commissioned by then-Volkswagen boss Ferdinand Piech, the Veyron was to relaunch Bugatti in 2005 with a car that produced over 1,000 horsepower and had a 250 mph top speed, yet could be driven to the opera.
"It's the odd one out here by a country mile," Berryman sold the Mr JWW YouTube channel during a 2019 garage tour. "To me this is a classic car, it was such a game-changer when it came out."
Berryman likens the Veyron to other automotive icons such as the Jaguar E-Type, Lamborghini Miura, and McLaren F1, adding, "I think this is the natural successor to that chain of game-changing cars. I think it's a beautiful car."
Worth in the region of $1.5 million today according to Classic.com, Bugatti built 450 examples of the Veyron between 2006 and 2015. It is powered by a purpose-built, 8.0-liter, W16 engine with four turbochargers. With some modifications and an extra 500 horsepower, taking the total output to 1,500 horsepower, the engine was later used in the Veyron's successor, the Chiron.
Lamborghini Miura
No rockstar garage would be complete without a Lamborghini Miura. Often described as the first true supercar, the story of the Miura is the stuff of automotive legend. It arrived with the 1966 Geneva Motor Show, was powered by a mid-mounted, 4.0-liter V12 engine, and at the time was the fastest production car in the world with a top speed of 173 mph.
According to Lamborghini, at least 43 movies have featured a Miura — the most famous being the opening scene of "The Italian Job" of 1969, where an orange P400 Miura raced along a snow-lined Alpine pass, accompanied by Matt Monro's "On Days Like These."
By owning a Miura, Berryman is part of a very special club. Fellow members include Rod Stewart, Peter Seller, Twiggy, Elton John, Miles Davis, Jay Kay of "Jamiroquai" and the Shah of Persia, all of whom have owned one, according to the Italian manufacturer.
Berryman told GQ how his Miura arrived "in boxes ... as a bit of a jigsaw puzzle," such was the degree of restoration required. He added: "I talk about cars as being sculptural art forms, and the Miura is probably the peak of that idea. You could just look at it."
Ferrari 275 GTB 'Short Nose'
As of 2020, Berryman owned three classic Ferraris: a 365BB, a Dino, and a 275 GTB "Short Nose." The latter is arguably the most interesting, and instead of the predictable red, Berryman's is finished in pine green.
Speaking to The Rake in 2020, he said: "I like to find things that are quite rare, something very special. I never buy cars by going online. I always found cars in strange ways, through coincidences like the 275 GTB 'barn-find' I bought in America. I brought it back to England and started restoring it to return it to its original shape."
Born in short-nose configuration, Berryman's Ferrari 275 GTB was at some point changed to the long-nose design, before he returned it to the original style. Produced between 1964 and 1966, the "Short-Nose" variant of the 275 GTB was powered by Ferrari's famous Colombo-designed V12 engine, expanded from its original capacity to 3.3 liters and producing a claimed 276 horsepower.
Styled by Pininfarina and built by Scaglietti, the 275 GTB was quickly changed from short to long-nose configuration in a bid to improve aerodynamics, says Classic Driver — with the former being the rarer of the two. Approximately 250 examples were built.
Porsche 356 Carrera Zagato Sanction II
Now for the more obscure members of Berryman's collection. Just one Porsche 356 Carrera Speedster Zagato was ever built, in 1957, for a French racing driver called Claude Storez. After racing it for a couple of years, Storez fitted larger wheels to the car, but these rubbed on the bodywork when steering on a high-speed straight at the Reims circuit in northern France; the friction caused the car to flip over and Storez was killed.
The car was never rebuilt. Instead, our story fast-forwards half a century to the 2010s, when Zagato decides to recreate nine so-called "continuation" examples. Berryman's car, pictured above in silver, uses a Porsche 356 as a donor vehicle. He collected the car from Zagato headquarters in Milan, and embarked on what he described in 2020 as "the greatest road trip of my life so far."
Speaking to Porsche, Berryman says how he "drove it up through the lakes, across to Chamonix and all the way down the Alps to Nice. We drove through the most inclement weather you could possibly imagine. There were lightning storms and visibility was down to about four meters on these twisty alpine roads."
Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada
This Bizzarrini from the mid-60s is perhaps the most storied car of Berryman's collection — not because of this exact car's history, but because of how the 5300 GT came about. It was a result of the so-called Palace Revolt of 1961; which saw four senior Ferrari engineers walk out after Enzo Ferrari fired commercial director Girolami Gardini for suggesting the boss' wife Laura should stop interfering with the car factory, says Porter Press.
One of those to walk out was Giotto Bizzarrini, who is credited for masterminding the Ferrari 250 GTO, one of the greatest (and now most valuable) racing cars of all time. He is also responsible for the 250 SWB and one-off Ferrari 'Breadvan.'
Bizzarrini then founded his own car company and developed a Le Mans racer in 1964, called the prototype A3/C. It was based on another car, called the Iso Grifo, and was followed by a road-going version powered by a Chevrolet V8 — called the Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada.
Speaking about his Bizzarrini, Berryman told the Mr JWW YouTube channel: "It drives well. It's got a good drive, great power, and makes a great noise. It's got that classic V8 burble as you go down the road. Probably one of the most exotic looking cars ever made."
Berryman says how the car has been "completely restored," adding how a small camera has been fitted to the rear to help with blind spots created by driving this left-hand-drive car on the right-hand-drive streets of the U.K.