Ferris Bueller Ferrari sells at auction for six figures — but it should be worth a lot more
Life moves pretty fast ... unlike this car
A replica Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder used in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has sold at auction in the United States for $337,500 (£277,701 at current exchange rates) despite not having an engine.
The car in question — one of three Ferrari replicas built for the cult favourite John Hughes film — is the one that featured in the famous scene in which the character Cameron Frye (played by Alan Ruck) attempts to turn back the odometer on his father’s prized Ferrari after best friend Ferris takes it for a joyride, by running it in reverse while jacked up off the ground. When the friends belated realise this doesn’t work, Cameron kicks the car in frustration, knocking it off the jacks and causing it to career through a window and down a steep drop.
Following the end of production, the crashed car was repaired for use as a display piece.
While that price tag of more than a quarter of a million pounds for a non-running replica may sound steep, it’s a snip compared to the value of a genuine Ferrari 250 California Spyder, which have been known to sell at auction in recent years for upwards of £15m.
The California Spyder was part of Ferrari’s long-running 250 series, a line of V12-powered racing and road cars including the fabled 250 GTO.
Ferrari 250s are much sought after by high-end classic car collectors and even the road cars rarely command less than £10m, with a 1962 racing GTO selling at auction in California in 2018 for £36.5m.
The three film props were built by California-based Modena Design & Development. While the car at auction may have been a glass fibre shell minus a drivetrain, one of the other cars used in the film was quite a bit more comprehensively engineered.
The car that featured in the scene where a couple of parking valets take the car for a joyride of their own, making it become airborne over a jump, was also a replica. It featured Modena’s glass fibre shell built around a tubular chassis, powered by a 5-litre Ford V8 engine mated to a four-speed automatic transmission driving the rear wheels.
Modena allegedly built the replica using an automatic gearbox on account of the fact that the film’s star, Matthew Broderick, did not know how to drive a manual.
Underneath, the working replica featured suspension and axles from a Ford Mustang, with the windscreen sourced from a Fiat 124 and the rear lights from a Volkswagen Type-3. Keen-eyed observers will also note that the speedometer is that of a Jaguar E-Type.
The car from the jump scene was damaged during filming but was repaired by Modena and changed hands several times, ending up in the UK between 2003 and 2010. It was sold at a Bonham’s auction at RAF Hendon in 2010 for just over £92,000, and the car has now returned to the United States.
The third car built by Modena was only partially completed and used for interior shots.
Modena’s replica was good enough for the firm to be sued by Ferrari — a company notorious for its protectiveness when it comes to its intellectual property — for using Ferrari badges on the film cars.
The case was settled out of court and Modena was allowed to continue building its line of Ferrari replicas with only minor changes.
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