Shockingly, entertainers deceived all of us…
By now you likely already know the 1972 Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spider featured in the hit TV show Miami Vice was actually a C3 Corvette. Actually, there were two C3s used for filming, both of them created to look just like the Italian exotic at the hands of McBurnie Coachcraft. If this is your first time hearing this fact, try to sit and breathe a moment. The fact anyone in the entertainment industry would deceive us so is incredibly shocking, so we realize this is plenty to process.
Learn what happened to Nash Bridges' Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda here.
The Ferrari in question belonged to Crockett, the lead Miami detective on the show, played by Don Johnson. While he was underground, working to bring drug runners to justice, most people just rolled with the fact the guy owned such an expensive vehicle on a detective’s salary. Hey, it made for good fantasy, as long as you didn’t think about it too much.
Originally, Ferrari North America refused to supply a car for Miami Vice. Maybe the Italians thought the show sound dumb or that nobody would watch it. It was a grave miscalculation on their part as men across North America started wearing boat shoes, white slacks, white blazers, and pink shirts in a desperate attempt to look hip. People also salivated over the Ferrari which wasn’t a Ferrari.
Ultimately, the undoing of the C3 Corvette in Ferrari clothing came about as Ferrari filed a lawsuit against McBurnie for creating the look-alike. After some exchanges between the Italian automaker and the show’s producers, Ferrari decided to donate two 1986 Ferrari Testarossas as an alternative vehicle.
That Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spider imposter had to go, and it was early in the third season when it happened. During an illegal arms deal gone bad, the quasi-Italian was blown to bits most gloriously. We’re sure many viewers were shocked producers would destroy a rare Ferrari, when the reality is they destroyed a rare-looking Corvette.
Yet again, producers deceived viewers’ eyes. The Ferrari imposter wasn’t actually blown up, so they lived on. One of those cars was used for closeups and so it more closely imitated the real thing. That vehicle is reportedly in the hands of a private collector. The stunt car was used in a John Candy movie called Speed Zone back in 1989 and then sat in the desert for about 20 years before being restored, finally landing at the Volo Auto Museum.
