After negotiating the French roads in a little yellow Mini for his latest film Mr Bean's Holiday, Rowan Atkinson has decided to splash out on something a little more to his taste. The vintage car collector and race enthusiast has splashed out on a £500,000 classic D-Type Jaguar to celebrate the movie's success at the box office and his last cinematic outing as the bumbling character.
A multi-millionaire who is reportedly worth £80 million, Rowan can easily afford the new set of wheels, which join his other top automobiles including Bentleys and Aston Martins. The 52-year-old takes his car hobby seriously, and has even written on the subject for car magazines. In 1991 he penned and starred in the tongue-in-cheek Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring him driving around London trying to solve his car obsession, discussing it with taxi drivers, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.
As for life beyond Mr Bean, the dad-of-two is reported to be starring in a new movie version of David Copperfield as Mr Micawber, one of Charles Dickens' best-known comic figures.