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James May

James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is a British television presenter and journalist. He is the co-presenter of the motoring programme Top Gear, alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond.

May has presented other programmes on themes including science and technology, toys, wine culture, and the plight of manliness in modern times. He wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph's motoring section.

May first co-presented Top Gear in 2003, where he earned the nickname "Captain Slow" owing to his careful driving style. Despite this sobriquet, he has done some especially high-speed driving, including in Top Gear Series 9, taking a Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of 253 mph (407 km/h) which is nearly one-third of the speed of sound at sea level and later on taking a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport edition to 260 mph (417 km/h).

He became one of the first people – with co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson and an Icelandic support crew – to travel by car to the magnetic North Pole, using a modified Toyota Hilux. In the words of Clarkson, he was the first person to go there "who didn't want to be there". He has driven a 1.3-litre Suzuki SJ413 through the Bolivian jungle, along Death Road and over the Andes to the Pacific Ocean in Chile. He also drove a modified Toyota Hilux (previously used as a crew car during the North Pole expedition) up the side of the erupting volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland.

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