Movie Cars: The 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Cameron: “The 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, less than 100 were made. My father spent 3 years restoring this car. It is his love, it is his passion…”
Ferris: “It is his fault he didn’t lock the garage.”

Cameron was right, less than 100 of the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyders were made. In fact, a car like Cameron’s dad’s is so rare, it’d sell for somewhere in the $2.5 million range, if it were real. Unfortunately, since the car was/is so insanely expensive, the makers of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off couldn’t even afford to rent one. So they hired an outside design company called Modena Design and Research to fabricate the Ferrari body out of fiberglass.


The MG MGB. This is the model that Modena Design used as the frame for the replica Ferrari 250 GT California in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

Modena did it up perfectly, put the fiberglass body on the frame of an MG MGB, and gave it a Mustang 5.0 engine; so the replica was actually a badass car in its own right. Sadly, Ferrari actually sued Modena Design for using all the real logos and apparently Modena had to shut down to avoid paying Ferrari damages.

Abe Froman, The Sausage King of Chicago

If it were a California Spyder though, the crash scene would have made Ferris Bueller’s Day Off a intestine-bothering horror film. The 250 GT California was essentially the same car as the competition Ferrari’s out on the racetrack; it shared it’s drive train with the 250 GT that won the Tour de France, it had the same chassis, same 140 mph performance, same aluminum bodywork, and same simple racing style interior with no luxuries. It was a beautiful, amazing, rare Ferrari, and if you have the money, it’s worth every penny of the 2.5 million it’d cost to buy one today.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Life goes by pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

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