- A 1963 Ferrari California body sits atop a 2010 California chassis in this unique project.
- The restomod includes the modern Ferrari drivetrain and detailed plans for completion.
- This no-reserve auction could yield one of the coolest or most daunting Ferrari restomods ever.
There’s an old adage that goes like this: “Never buy another man’s project.” For those who think such sayings are just stupid, there’s this Ferrari. It might be the most ambitious and terrifying project we’ve ever featured. In short, it’s the original body of a 1963 Ferrari California 250 GTE sitting atop a 2010 Ferrari California chassis. It’s going to take some work to get it over the finish line though.
First, let’s talk about how this car came to be. The seller over on Cars&Bids says this was his dad’s project. “This is indeed glorious insanity! It was an immense passion project fueled by the wish to have modern performance & reliability of today’s sports car but wrapped in the classic look of the past. He did have an idea at the very beginning to fully restore to original, however, quickly switched approach to restomod. (Not in small part due to difficulty in tracking down original 250 pieces…)”
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Body swaps aren’t all that uncommon in the car world but a Ferrari on Ferrari body swap is about as rare as it gets. Doing this sort of thing with a modern Ferrari that by all accounts was running just fine is even crazier. According to Doug DeMuro, the winning bidder is going to get basically everything they need to get this project running.
That includes the complete drivetrain from the modern California along with 3D scan files and a 52-page guide detailing the entire plan. To the seller’s credit, that’s a lot more than most projects would come with when trading hands. On top of that, a great deal of the hardest work is already done.
Photos Cars&Bids
That includes, and I can’t believe this actually happened, cutting the original 1963 Ferrari body down the middle to weld in enough sheet metal that it would cover the modern California chassis. The seller already has all of the wiring needed, they’ve test-fitted the body on the chassis, and they’ve sorted out all of the interior pieces too.
For the right person, with the right amount of time, this could be one of the coolest body swaps ever done. As of this writing, the bid is only up to $7,600. It has no reserve price either so at the end of the auction, somebody is going to need to show up with a huge box to ship all of this stuff in.
