True Ferrari aficionados appreciate the classic, unaltered look and feel of a vintage, pristine Prancing Horse; kind of the opposite of this car.
As a Ferrari fan, I should begin the article pleading Ferrari purists to turn a blind eye to this automobile, because the amount of heresy and blasphemy that went into it is just mind boggling; and that’s why it’s an awesome build.
The intriguing contraptions appears to be a hunkered down Ferrari 250 GTE, but the car has little Ferrari left in it, to be honest. According to its owner, the vehicle is powered by a high-revving Chevy DZ302 V8, mated to a Tremec Viper 6-Speed transmission (yes, as in Dodge Viper) and a Ford 9-inch rear end. As this wasn’t clearly enough to make Enzo turn in his grave, the Ferrari is painted in a limited-edition color from…Mitsubishi.
In fact, the only original Ferrari-approved components on the car, besides the body (obviously), are the windshield and the badges.
But how on earth did a Ferrari 250 end up like this? Well, the owner acquired only the car’s beautiful, Pininfarina-designed body shell (which was in a pretty rough shape), without a chassis, floor, engine or everything else that make a car drivable, and he began building it from the ground up, manufacturing custom and bespoke components in the process.
A thorough restoration would have costed him a fortune, considering the fact that he paid $1200 on a single, original badge. So, the man handled the situation within his budget, saving a beautiful body in the process. Given the opportunity, I would’ve built my own personal custom 250 GTE too, but probably used a Hayabusa engine instead.