Ferris Bueller’s replica 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder hit the auction block next month.
Here at E3 Spark Plugs, we love a great movie car auction or contest. If you’d like to get behind the wheel of a cinematic ride, we’ve got three chances coming up.
Perhaps the most iconic of the three s the replica 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder trashed in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In the John Hughes-directed blockbuster, Matthew Broderick’s beloved character “borrows” his buddy’s dad’s vintage car to skip school and cruise around Chicago, taking his ever-suspicious Dean of Students Ed Rooney and frustrated sister, Jeannie for a ride of another kind. A “Save Ferris” donation campaign kicks off at school, driven by his expertly faked illness, as Bueller whirls through town, impersonating the Sausage King of Chicago, taking in a game at Wrigley Field, performing in a parade and hitting numerous Chi-Town landmarks. Meanwhile, two garage attendants take the Ferrari for a joy ride, racking up serious miles. Eventually, via an attempt to reverse the tell-tale mileage by suspending the car and running it in reverse, it ends up in the bottom of a ravine.
While several cars were used in the final destruction scene, the one up for grabs starred in the legendary airborne scene when the two joyriding garage attendants take it out for a spin and fly over a bump in the road. Thankfully for bidders, the Ferrari’s current owners have fully restored the car, expected to fetch upwards of $100,000 at the Mecum Auctions August 15 event in Monterey, CA.
If you miss out on Ferris’ Ferrari, head to London September 8 and 9 for a chance at James Bond’s Esprit Series 1 Submersible Lotus featured in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. RM Auctions will handle the sale of the sole example of the vehicle built for the movie by Perry Oceanographic of Florida. Once the film wrapped, the vehicle headed to a storage unit in Long Island, NY, where it remained, covered in blankets, for over a decade. But when the storage contract ran out and no one paid up, the unit was put up for blind for public auction and for a small fee, one lucky couple got the surprise of a lifetime. After positive authentication, 007’s Lotus was shown only occasionally. No word on what RM officials are expecting the ride will draw.
Perhaps a bit less iconic, but every bit as anticipated by fans of the 1996 cult classic, Fargo, is a replica of the tan 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera driven by two of cinema’s most dysfunctional hit men ever. Bumbling car salesman Jerry Lundegaard’s attempt to shake a few grand from his rich father-in-law by hiring Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife goes violently awry, resulting In multiple murders and one of the most memorable wood chipper scenes ever.
Mind you, the car up for grabs at the 2013 Fargo Fest, Sept. 28, isn’t actually the one used in the Coen Brothers film. But event officials went on an exhaustive search and got dang close with a 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera SL. For a $5 raffle ticket, you can drive home in a fun, if not particularly enviable, collector item. So dust off your bomber hat, iron your flannel shirt, and stake your claim – Darn tootin’!
