At $145,000, What Do We Make Of This 2001 BMW Z3 Fauxari 250 California?

The seller of today's Nice Price or No Dice re-bodied Z3 3.0 claims it to possess "Modern reliability with 60s beauty." Let's see what might possess someone to buy it.

Expectations are sometimes hard to meet. We all have visions of what we want and how we expect things to turn out, but the outcomes often fall outside those expectations.

Take, for example, the 1991 Chevy Corvette ZR1 that we considered yesterday. The comments on the car were filled with exhortations such as "Beautiful car!" and "I gotta get me some of that!" The problem, of course, was the Corvette's price. Anointed "King of the Hill" during its development, our low-mileage, well-kept example's $33,500 asking price proved not only fit exclusively for royalty, but also, in the minds of most of you, too high even for those who wear the crown. That was expressed in the 55% "No Dice" loss the otherwise covetable Corvette suffered in the voting. It seems the teeming masses agree with that assessment, as the ad for the ZR1 has been up for almost an entire month.

OK, I need you to steel yourselves before we slide into a chair at the Mad Hatter's tea party that is today's candidate. As Bette Davis once famously advised, "Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Take a look at the pictures of this beautiful car and tell me what your first guess would be as to its origins and value. Yeah, it's way crazier than that, and I don't think we even know the half of it.

Our car is described in its ad as a hand-crafted "evocation" of a 1960s Ferrari 250 California SWB. That homage has been built on the chassis of a 2001 BMW Z3 roadster, giving it, in the seller's words, "Modern reliability." I'm guessing they aren't fully versed in the actual reliability of 25-year-old BMWs.

Here's the thing, though: Ferrari only built a little over 100 of the 250 California spiders—and did so under protest, as the company considered open-topped cars to be more grand tourers than sports cars. Today, real-deal 250 Californias are considered among the most coveted of classic cars, with one special edition having crossed the auction block at the most recent Monterey Car week for over 25 million dollars. It's no wonder someone might want to have some of that sizzle without having to pay for the steak.

For most of us, mention of the classic 250 California elicits visions of the red edition that featured prominently in the 1986 comedy, 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.' That, of course, was also a replica, using a fiberglass body laid up by a company called Modena Design. This car is supposedly fancier, as the seller touts it as not being made of fiberglass, but instead having hand-crafted "fibre-glass" coachwork. Aside from some minor niggles—that out-of-place fuel filler door, and the awful bolt-on wire wheels among them—it's a pretty faithful interpretation of the Carrozzeria Scaglietti original.

The BMW underpinnings are a solid solution for the car as well. On paper, the 3-liter M54 straight six may not compare well to the Ferrari's Columbo-designed V12, but in reality, it's a much closer match. While having only half the cylinder count, the BMW motor is the Ferrari's equal in displacement, and with 228 horsepower on tap, it's within spitting range of the Ferrari's claimed 280 horsepower, since the latter's was calculated as a more generous gross number. The BMW one-ups the original Ferrari, too, by having disc brakes and independent suspension at each corner. The wheelbase between each axle is also surprisingly similar between the Z3 and the 250 SWB.

Now, I said this whole scenario is weird, and it's only going to get weirder. So far, we know that this homage is built on a BMW, and that's... okay. Here's the really strange part of the whole ad and offering: the car is advertised on Facebook Marketplace as being located in Long Beach, California, but in the pictures, there's nary a palm tree nor the Queen Mary in sight. Instead, we see the car in an indeterminate location, fitted with a Cape Town, South Africa license plate. Even more oddly, the BMW chosen for the car's base is right-hand drive.

That's all pretty confusing, but our attention might be diverted by just how much work has gone into making that RHD interior look like an old-school Ferrari. It's not a complete time machine, as the BMW's unique dash shape is still evident, as are all of the center-stack climate controls. Still, the Veglia gauges, Nardi steering wheel, and re-contoured seats go a long way in supporting the illusion.

OK, we've established that this homage Ferrari-esque BMW is weirdly wonderful and that it's probably outside the country, making its importation questionable. That leads us to wonder just who in the U.S. is the audience for this car? Perhaps more importantly, is it worth the $145,000 asked for its purchase to definitively find out?

Yes, that is several million dollars shy of what a real 250 California would cost, which is a plus. There is, however, a distinct possibility that anyone who possesses this car while it's wearing actual Ferrari badging might be sued by the Italian carmaker, a negative outcome in such a situation eroding that differential.

What do you think? Is this Fauxari worth that $145,000 roll of the dice? Or does this weird car deserve a less-crazy price?

You decide!

Nice Price or No Dice:

Facebook Marketplace out of Long Beach, California, or go here if the ad disappears.

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