There are two things James May would like to get off his chest. First, contrary to popular belief, he is not an eternal bachelor incapable of attracting a member of the opposite sex because of an overdeveloped passion for disassembling motorcycle gearboxes. He has a girlfriend, actually. Second, yes, he did drive the Bugatti Veyron up to its top speed of 253mph and, what's more, "It was very easy." So who are you calling Captain Slow?
May can probably afford to play a bit fast and loose with his Top Gear alter ego right now. After all, the venerable car show is far from the only iron in his fire. Only a few weeks ago, he was floating 70,000ft up at the edge of space in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane as part of the series James May on the Moon. Beat that, Jeremy.
In the course of the past year he has also published his third book of collected newspaper columns, become "slightly addicted to exotic white wines", thanks to his BBC wine show with Oz Clarke, and won a special award from the Royal Horticultural Society for his unusual entry to the Chelsea flower show (an entire garden made of Plasticine). When we speak he's in the middle of his latest project - building a life-size house out of 2.8m Lego bricks on a hill near Dorking, Surrey, in preparation for Toy Stories, his forthcoming TV show about children's toys.
If May originally delighted in the monicker "the other bloke from Top Gear", he is now dangerously close to becoming a bona fide celebrity in his own right. As if any more evidence were needed, he recently had a vaguely unnerving encounter with a lookalike fan.
"Hmmm ... there was one, he came up and had his photo taken with me," says May hesitantly. "He had the same hair and he was wearing the same sort of shirt." Was it a coincidence? "I wasn't sure and I didn't really like to ask," he ponders politely. "That would have been frightening."
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Top Gear is now in its seventh year (in the current format), and May has been co-presenter since 2003. Despite audience figures as high as 7m for the latest series, not to mention an estimated 350m viewers worldwide, there is endless speculation about when the show might come to an end. It's something May thinks about, too, which may explain the diversification. "I don't know which will last longer - us or the programme," he says. "It is sort of that rock band-type thing - you have to know when you've peaked and leave it at that, rather than sliding."
There has been speculation about May and Clarkson opening a pub together after the demise of the show, whenever that comes. "Well, that was something I suggested and he [Clarkson] was quite into it but I don't think we'd ever be able to do it. I think ultimately our ideas of what a pub should be would be quite different. But who knows? I've always fancied it."
Despite his many new and varied projects, May's love of machines remains undiminished. He owns five cars - two Porsches, a Rolls-Royce Corniche, a 1970s Triumph 2000 and a Fiat Panda - as well as eight motorcycles. And, for now at least, Top Gear remains his spiritual home, so he's keen not to dispel too many of the show's highly entertaining myths.
"I live with my girlfriend [Sarah Frater, a dance critic] and have done for several years, but there is certainly some truth in my Top Gear image and I don't want to spoil it because it's a good joke," he admits.
"The Captain Slow thing isn't just because I tend to go a bit slow, it's also because I can't really be bothered with going very fast in a car. There are other things I like about cars. I like scenery and I like sort of making your own film through the windscreen by driving along."
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He claims to be frustrated with Clarkson. "Well, he's an arse!" he says with a straight face. "We are friends, of course, and I quite enjoy his company because he's infuriating and just useless at all the things I hold dear. We had a long debate about it on the way to the North Pole, actually [they drove there together in 2007 for Top Gear]. We realised the only thing we agree upon is that Heinz Sandwich Spread is delicious."
Those tempted to try May's culinary endorsements might like to know his other signature dish is fried Spam. Yes, really. "I find the idea of packaged food quite fascinating," he explains. "Spam lasts for hundreds of years. I've got this tinned steak and kidney pudding in the cupboard. The sell-by date is July 1993 but I've still got it and my plan is to eat it when I'm 80 and see if it kills me. I think it will be fine."
The world can probably do without the James May gastropub experience for now, so long live Top Gear.
Car Fever by James May, published by Hodder & Stoughton, is out now, priced £18.99