CMC 1:18 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder

Okay, admit- you’ve been in a funk. So few remarkable 1/18 models are being released these days. Can’t stifle a yawn lately?

Well wake up sleepy-head, CMC has just given you a reason to go for the gold...card that is. This Ferrari California 250 GT SWB is a titanic Teutonic triumph.

Like many American star stories, the evolution of the Ferrari California 250 GT SWB starts in Hollywood. Ferrari dealer Jon von Neumann insists to Luigi Chinetti, Ferrari’s New York based Sales lead that Ferrari build a special, American version of the Ferrari 250 GT Tour de France with one specific signature modification: no hardtop. While the current cabriolet on offer was all well and good, these men insisted that America needs a fully toothed Ferrari droptop. The result of their lobbying was the 250 California. First built as a LWB model in 1958 (these versions have three rakes in the vents behind the front wheel wells) it was sharpened in 1959/60 to the same SWB version 250 GT.

The car was essentially a racer in street clothing, with the latest spec Colombo V12 250hp engine. They could be ordered to full Competizione racing spec. Chinetti eventually ordered a 280hp version for N.A.R.T. to race at Le Mans. With sheet metal fabricated by Scaglietti of Modena via Pinanfarina’s initial design, it was an instant road classic and among the most striking looking cars of the age.

The Ferrari 250 California GT were popular right from the start on these shores and continue to increase in popularity today; one went at auction last year for a pittance:$10.8 million dollars. For one car...that doesn’t even have seat belts. Or a heater. Yike.

It’s good news then that the model is among the finest CMC has ever executed.

Deceptively simple, it's assembled from a whopping 1,634 parts. CMC orchestrates all those pieces as gracefully as Beethoven does musical instruments and given that it has such minuscule details as real ball bearings in the wheels, functional trunk lock and cylindrical spring suspension and brake unit true to the original - it's of epic symphonic proportion.

So, with detail like that, you’d expect the shape and stance to be good - and they are spot on. At $300 a pop, you aren't blown away by flawless corra rossa paint, rich chrome and upgraded elements like ebonite bumper guards. Out of the styrofoam coffin it’s a glistening work of art that feels solid and anything but fragile. CMC has avoided complexities like a functional shift linkage that can make a high end model both exceptional and vulnerable at the same time. The money here is in items like rich saddle leather with scaled pebbling, the textured dash, readable gauges nested in metal bezels. And I love the cigarette case on the seat. The doors are surprisingly light given the model’s heft, but swing open easily and close tightly and feature stitched leather and lustrous photo-etched detail.

The CMC Ferrari 250 California features the first working locking trunk that I’m aware of in a production 1/18 scale model. While hearty congratulations on this engineering feat are easy enough to give, it seems to be primarily firing for effect. Not that I’m complaining because there doesn’t seem to be a trade-off involved with perhaps there being no provision for replicating the fabric-based top - not that you’d ever display it that way.

This ingenious trunk works via a spring loading convention and inside you’ll find a removable spare tire/wheel with leather tie down. I’d suggest reading the enclosed documentation before just going in and trying to open it using the kind of banzai dead reckoning I recently was guilty of when trying to ‘fix’ a toilet. Yeah, turned in to a long, expensive night and not the kind you brag about to the boys at the office.

To CMC’s credit, they haven’t just chucked the same detailed engine in this model as their previous 250 GT, taking care to make sure each has the proper spec. The level of modeling that CMC puts in their engines has always amazed me. And wire wheels where the spokes are hand mounted with individual nipples? Exquisite. And I really like that CMC still puts branded tires on their cars, in this case Michelins, that feature extruded markings. Locking nuts on the removable wheels are threaded to rotate differently depending the side of the car you are on.

And CMC has logged major time and effort into ensuring the Califorina’s undercarriage is replicated with authenticity. Components aren’t just lumps of generally correct plastic, but carefully formed and etched parts using a mixed media approach in terms of materials. The suspension is typically functional in a model in this range, but is metal which is an upgrade over the usual plastic. Of the staggering 1,634 pieces that make up this model, many are visible only by flipping the model.

This car is best known to most current Americans under a certain age not for it’s racing lineage, but for the movie where it represented ultimate freedom and in your face extravagance: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Except the car in that film wasn’t a real Ferrari at all, but a copy using a Mustang frame and engine.

Let there be no doubt: this CMC model is the real deal.

A super premium model, executed with precision with the matching high price tag. Worth it? Yep, you’re getting a museum class replica.

Let's look on the bright side; the price isn’t 1/18 scale of10 mill. But even so, I have no plan on dunking mine in Lake Michigan.

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