5 Famous Fake Cars in Movies and TV Shows
The recent Netflix series, Senna, got us thinking of movie cars that—often for practical reasons—aren’t exactly what they seem. This story originally ran on our site in 2013, and we’ve freshened it up a bit to provide some helpful and entertaining context for today’s movie-car choices. — Ed.
Hollywood loves to incorporate hot classic cars into movies and television shows. Producers and insurers are also notoriously risk-averse, preferring to use replicas rather than the hyper-valuable real deal whenever possible. Here are some of our favorite big- and small-screen fakes.
Nash Bridges
1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda: The ’90s San Francisco cop show revived Don Johnson’s career, pairing him with Cheech Marin (half of the stoner comedy team of Cheech and Chong). The yellow car that appeared to be an ultra-rare Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was actually what is known as a “clone,” or a car that started out as a lesser model but was restored to appear as a top shelf ‘Cuda. The difference in price is staggering—around $180,000 grand for a convertible with the 383, more than $3M for the real deal (both prices reflect #2 condition).
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1985)
1960 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder: The Ferris Bueller Ferrari is probably the best-known big screen fake. From a distance, it appears reasonably accurate, but Ferrari aficionados can spot the differences in their sleep, from the Triumph-sourced gauges to the MGB taillights. And don’t get them talking about the bogus Italian Borrani wire wheels. A real California Spyder in #2, or Excellent, condition is nearly $20 million today.
Miami Vice (1984)
1972 Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona: Don Johnson appears to be a bit of a magnet for fake cars. His black Daytona Spyder was actually a fake built on a Corvette chassis, and few Ferrari fans shed tears when the car was blown up in sight of Johnson’s character, Sonny Crockett, and his pet alligator, Elvis. Afterward, Crockett took to driving a white Ferrari Testarossa—a real one, this time.
Top Gun (1986)
1958 Porsche Speedster: Kelly McGillis’ character drove this one around San Diego in the classic ’80s movie. Porsche Speedsters are among the most replicated cars ever—most are convincing fiberglass bodies slapped on top of a VW Beetle platform. The replica featured in Top Gun appears to have been one of the good ones, built by longtime Speedster replica-maker Intermeccanica. They’re still in business in British Columbia, Canada, turning out extremely high-quality vintage Porsche replicas.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
1935 Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster: Indy’s sidekick Short Round still holds the record for the best automotive chase involving a pre-teen driver. With blocks tied to the pedals, Short Round takes Jones and a lounge singer on a wild ride through prewar Shanghai. The car was, of course, a complete fake, and not a particularly convincing one at that.
I own a Hollywood “fake” car.
In 1971, CBS broadcast an adventure series, Bearcats! (basically a car equipped “Have Gun, Will Travel” or a predecessor to the “A-Team”), which utilized a pair of 1914 Stutz Bearcat replicas.
With real Stutzes bringing the (then) high price of $40-50,000, the producers opted to have George Barris make a pair of look-alikes with modern powertrains for reliability and four-wheel brakes for safety.
They featured hand-formed steel bodies on a custom chassis.
At the time, TV Guide said they cost about $25,000 for the pair, but Barris would later claim they cost much more.
As a teen, I watched the series and fell for the model. Not being able to afford a real Bearcat (recent values have ranged from $300k to $3 million for a well-known authentic example), I started looking for one of the Barris cars. I eventually found one (in need of a lot of TLC) and, after restoring it, have been driving it for 25 years.
You’d have to be a brass-era expert to distinguish them from the real deal, and the Ford engines and modern parts make them easy to maintain.
The best thing is they weigh 1,000 less than a Stutz and have twice the power. Based on a chance to steer a friend’s Bearcat, I have to admit the original has better steering.
No one has ever complained about it not being an authentic car. I was welcomed to a large Stutz meet, with a couple of owners saying they envied my parts availability. Kids love it, and their mothers ask if it’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
I like that it shows people, who are very unlikely to come across anything of that era besides a Model T, what an early performance car looks like.
So, some fakes are worth having.
Like you, as a kid I fell in love with the Stutz – and maybe just as much because of the Bearcat name than anything. These fakes sound like they’d make a practical alternative to the real deal. Congrats on landing one!
My god, someone else knows of “Bearcats”??!!
Loved that show.
http://www.rodtaylorsite.com/bearcats.shtml
I provided the info on the car to that website. A fun site.
I thought I was the only one!
I remember seeing a model kit of the Bearcat available in a catalog at my local hobby shop. I asked them to order it for me. They said they would. I called the store every day for a month to see if it came in. It never did. My elementary-school age heart was crushed!
I bought the model at a drug store the first time I saw one. After buying it, I went to a nearby model shop where I showed it to the owner (I wound up working there for a year during college). He said, why didn’t you tell me you wanted one, pulling one out of the stick room. He’s already sold one he had on the display counter.
I think I bought that one too.
I still have the one I built…I did a pretty nice job.
I see they bring big money on ebay. The kit was reissued twice (in different boxes), so you might look for one of those.
Loved those cars and always have!!
…just ask Barry White!
…if only we still could. : (
I remember that series! It was just a single season, but it made an impression on the early teenage me. I wonder if the second faux Bearcat still exists?
You have the privilege of owning what could be referred to as a “promotional tool” for the very late Stutz Motor Company.
Yes, the #2 car still exists in the UK.
It was owned for many years by a Barris fan, I saw the car at a 2003 auction where it failed to sell. It was eventually sold 6-8years ago.
Now to confuse matters….
There is a third car as well, though it was never used in the filming of the series. Barris built one as a promotional vehicle for car shows. It was sold circa 2000 to a friend who sold it to an Stutz Club acquaintance.
He disassembled it, apparently planning to put the body on an original Stutz frame. He passed away 3 years ago before completing the project.
It was sold at auction last year, the new owner contacted me and I’ve given details and photos to help him get it back together.
The Barris car was painted differently and had several differences to the two TV cars.
Oddly, the #2 car was repainted to match the Barris car at some point.
So, mine is the only of the three in its correct TV colors.
A McBurnie Daytona is one of my lottery bucket list cars. Send it to Kindig, with an Aussie LS V12 (valve covers done in red crinkle with stack injection), six-speed, Custom Borrani’s (or nice HRE’s) ( or custom cut Curtis Speed’s like on Foose’s Jag), Roadster Shop or Morrison Chassis, Thumpin’ system, etc. Finished in deep indigo blue. A friend actually knows where one is, and I bought a Mega ticket just this morning. You won’t know I won, but there’ll be signs…
Durn. I thought the 356 Speedster was real. It couldn’t have been worth then anywhere near what it is worth now, right?
Even the copycat 356’s are worth a lot of money today! Just watch Bring a Trailer for confirmation.
The Intermeccanica Speedsters and Roadsters are great. One day when I was talking with the owner, Henry Reisner, he told me that Porsche came looking once. It was all about trademark infringement. When they finished checking over the cars, they said to him to go ahead and keep doing what you are doing. You make them better than we did!
I immediately thought of the “Ferrari” in the Ben Stiller film, Tower Heist. Some people thought they put a real Ferrari in a swimming pool.
The 1937 Mercedes 320 German Staff Car in the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was built from a MkIX Jaguar sedan. The dead giveaway is the classic Jaguar knurled knob on the steering column that adjusts the wheel position. I had the pleasure of visiting the shop in the UK where the work was done. Saw the car too!
how about the Mopar in Fast and Furious
Unless you’re a Mopar fan… Aren’t we all car guys here? Why dis somebody who points something out relative to the article?
I was watching an old Batman series, gleaned from pre-show movie reels, where the Batmobile was a standard 49 Mercury convertible. The villains were chasing the Mercury in a 30’s dual-cowl phaeton, when they lost control of the vehicle, and flew over a high cliff. The phaeton miraculously turned into a Chevrolet sedan before crashing into the ground.
Reminds me of the Chevrolet SS sedan used in the Starsky and Hutch movie that turned into a Malibu when they set it on fire.
Or the Dodge Challenger that crashed into the bulldozers at the end of “Vanishing Point”. A close look at the rear fenders of the wreck shows it was a 1969 Camaro….
Intermeccanica is sadly out of business now. They were acquired by a publicly traded start-up electric car company, becoming Electrameccanica briefly before that company failed and was acquired by an electric truck manufacturer. I think I bought the last Model S ever made by them. Sad to see them go.
I visited their shop in California in 1977 and had mine shipped to South Carolina. Red over tan with a tan top still with the original gel coat. I replaced all of the exterior trim with NOS from Stoddard, reset the ride height, and run a set of the Fuchs alloy wheels which were an option on the 914s. It is a great little fun car and always has the top down. When it was registered, I mention that it was a replica with a ’72 VW pan. The officer stated that it would be registered as a 1958 Porsche…since his officers would not recognize the car as a VW. Yes, they are gone but their legacy is still alive and well at my house.
This Intermeccanica isn’t the same as the Italian sports car company of the ‘60’s and 70’s, I’m assuming.
Copied from – Wikipedia
Construzione Automobili Intermeccanica is an automobile manufacturer, founded in Torino, Italy, in 1959 by Frank Reisner and Paula Reisner. It subsequently moved first to the United States, then to Canada, and is currently headed by Frank’s son, Henry Reisner.
That’s correct except that they’re out of business now. Nonetheless, the makers of the Speedster replicas was the same company that built the beautiful Italian GTs.
I’m curious about the Diagnosis Murder Jaguar myself. I’ve heard that it was real and belonged to Van Dyke and that it is fake. I can’t tell from the screenshots.
Was the Porsche driven by Jacqueline Bisset (and later Steve McQueen) in “Bullitt” real? It looked like the real thing. Wonder where that car is now…it seems like anything McQueen ever touched is worth a zillion dollars these days.
Yes. That one was real in Bullitt. It was a 356C Cabriolet, not a Speedster, though.
Even better!
In 1968 when Bullit was filmed, I don’t think anyone was building Porsche replicas.
The real ones were inexpensive enough for most people, though I bet a Speedster was fairly expensive for the time….probably the cost of a new pony car, possibly more.
The first Intermeccanica replicas were built in 1977 – they delivered about 200 that year.
The black 1958 Porsche Speedster used in “Top Gun” (1986) is likely the same car Eddie Murphy drove in the movie “48 Hours” (1982).
In that movie, the car is first seen roughly 22 minutes into the movie in a random traffic scene, but later is introduced as having been in storage during Eddie Murphy’s character, Reggie Hammond’s, incarceration.
You’re probably right about that, good catch
I’m thinking the same for the Speedsters (black) in the movie “Coming Home” from 1978, with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight?
I saw the second movie in the theater. When they pulled up to Eddie Murphy’s house and his “Speedster” was sitting there I said “That’s not a Speedster!” and then it promptly exploded. It looked to be a real Cabriolet. I was livid!
Well, the Nash Bridges ‘Cuda is in fact a “real” ‘Cuda, unlike the other cars in the article which were “kit” cars. Except the Nash car was not a real hemi car.
I had heard the Cuda was originally sold in Milwaukee at Labotsky Plymouth from a friend and he was the sales guy. He said it was a Hemi car. But I have to take that with a grain of salt.
Surely the number 1 fake car scene must be in The Italian Job with Charlie Croker’s Aston Martin DB4 is pushed into the gorge by a bulldozer. The actual car sent crashing over the edge being, in fact, a disguised Lancia Flamina Convertible!
They also crashed a different car at the end of “Vanishing Point”. Believe I read it was a Firebird? Good excuse to watch Kowalski again!
It was a Camaro. All the challengers were destroyed.
It was actually a camaero
What in the world is a “camaero”?
It’s a Camaro that’s been modified to have a very low drag coefficient.
Clever!
The Canadian version? 🤭🤭🤭
It’s the device that was used to film the very last scene in Thelma and Louise, as the T-bird went off the cliff…
The car at the end of “Vanishing Point” was a 68 Camaro roller that had been loaded with about 50 gallons of gasoline (for effect) and was towed into the bulldozer blades via cable…by one of the white ’70 Challengers. Ironic.
Who cares abought the remake! Now the Miura in the original, is pure magic! Yes, both cars are genuine. The driver has been rediscovered, and is almost all original 3586. The engine block cracked so a NOS SV, the last one in the factory stores was used, the original is also with the car. Probably no movie car in history has been so scrutinized, frame by frame, every stich on the dash and seats compared to any irregularity, yes it is the car! As for the cliff car, the factory will only say, it was sent to a Saudi Oil Shake then crashed and returned to the factory. No chassis number! It was gutted, and lent to the film on the condition that the remains would be returned. The next day, Ken Morris took a crew to retrieve it out of the very steep gorge. You guised it, it was gone! Over the next days Ken personally went down there several times and it was gone, all gone, not even a nut or bold was found! To this day, no one has come forward to take credit, and it had to be a fair size team. Still one of the all time best driving scenes in any movie!
What a travesty the Flaminia was a great car
Miura, not DB4. A previously wrecked Miura was used as the ‘post bulldozer’ fall guy while Lamborghini provided a matching color new one for the pre-crash driving scenes.
I seem to remember an Alfred Hitchcock movie (TV show?) where they substituted aluminum-bodied Fords to film an accident scene to show the cars were going faster than they actually were.
For anyone who is interested in cars used in the movies and on TV and doesn’t know about it already, there is a “car guy” equivalent to the IMDb. It’s called the IMCDb (Internet Movie Cars Database).
You can look up a movie/TV show and see all the cars used in it, or look up a car and see all the movies/TV shows it’s been in.
https://www.imcdb.org
Rabbit hole alert! You can have a lot of fun on IMCDb. Keep an eye on the clock, though.
If you find a place where it’s being used to settle bar bets — order a second round.
this site has an amazing collection of information including tv shows, movies and just cars you are looking for including trucks, construction stuff etc!
Yes!! Excellent, unbelievable data base.
just checked out the ’64 Lincoln Conty crushed in Goldfinger