Ferrari’s old entry-level California sports car is often unfairly derided for being a bit ungainly and not particularly sporty. One intrepid individual started an individual labor of love to blend a 2010 California’s modern usability with the classic good looks of a 1963 250 GTE. Unfortunately after what appears to be several years of work the project has been abandoned for the next sucker, uh, I mean, intrepid wrencher to finish up. Do you have the patience, skill, space, and desire to finish a weird Ferrari project car that will almost certainly look worse than a 250 GTE and drive worse than a California when its done, while running up bills that will likely exceed the value of either? Look no further.
According to the auction listing, the car underneath is a pretty basic Ferrari California. It is still powered by a 453 horsepower 4.3-liter V8 engine pushing power through a 7-speed dual clutch automatic. When this project apparently began about seven years ago the California was a relatively low-mile example with just 5,600 clicks on the odometer. From there someone decided it would be a great idea to cut the entire body off the car and replace it with a modified and tweaked Ferrari 250 GTE body.
If this project ever gets finished it’ll probably be one of the fastest and most impressive performing 250 GTEs ever, but it’ll certainly look ungainly with a stretched and fettled body and way-too-big brakes and wheels. This is the problem that almost any body swap has, and it takes a lot more engineering than you would think to fix it. In this case it may not even be possible to fix it. Even if you re-engineered everything to work with a smaller 15 or 16 inch knock-on wire wheel to give the car the right look, the modern computers would probably spit out some error code about incorrect rolling diameter or traction control.
Is this a project car worth finishing, or would it be better to pick this up cheap and part it out for some other poor sucker with a Ferrari project car? There are still thousands of hours and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of fabrication, electrical, mechanical, and body work to get this car even to the point of being able to drive under its own power again. When you’re all finished, will it have been worth it? Maybe if you’re seriously passionate about the project, more passionate than the person who started it, of course, then you can get it done and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
If that sounds like you, head on over to Cars & Bids and get to bidding. As of this writing it’s sitting at $12,250 with three days remaining, so you could still buy a whole lot of headache and hard work for very little money.
