It was supposed to be a Mercedes. In John Hughes' original script for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the direction reads, "The door goes up and light

streams in to reveal Cameron and Ferris looking at a Mercedes AMG."

That's right. The car, whose only competition for "Most Iconic Eighties Movie Car" is the Doc Brown DeLorean, was supposed to wear a three-pointed star.

Which AMG, exactly, was never specified, but I'd imagine that with the script finalized in late 1982 or early 1983, it was probably the epic and recently

departed 450SEL 6.9. But that was before someone from the production company saw a photo of a Modena Spider, a high-quality 250GT SWB California

Spyder-inspired replica.

Paramount liked the car they saw so much that they leased one from Modena Design partners Mark Goyette and Neil Glassmoyer, and bought two more. The original Ford

289-powered prototype they got worked fine. Neil and Mark sold Paramount two as CKDs, but the studio apparently never really got around to turning them

into working cars.

Or so I thought. Over the last decade, I've spent quite a bit of time trying to nail down what happened to the other two cars (because I stayed for the end

when it was in the theaters, is why), and until last month I thought I knew the story: One, which Paramount built intending to be the stunt car, never ran

right and it eventually went backwards out of Cameron's dad's window. That left the original car as the one used in essentially every other scene. I knew

it was the one that "maniac at the wheel" Richard Edson and Larry Flash Jenkins jumped, because Mark and Neal had to repair its crushed exhaust.

So as far as anyone knew, there was one Hero Car, which sold at auction in 2010. The

(non-running, out the window) stunt car ended up at Planet Hollywood in Minneapolis, and as of their packing up to move in April 2013, it was hanging from

the ceiling of Planet Hollywood Cancun.

The third car, however, had long been a mystery. The rumor was always that Paramount had run out of time/money/motivation to complete it, and that it has

been sitting derelict in a backlot in Hollywood ever since.

Then Neil decided to turn my little world upside down, because he owns the third car.

"I followed this car from Day 1," he said. What few people knew was that yes, there was one complete car used for stunts, and one non-runner that went out

the window. But Paramount did build the third car after all, because when Neil bought it, it was full of holes drilled for camera mounts; had suspension

damage from the jump (or more accurately, from the seventh or eighth take, when they broke it); and a front end full of dents from being kicked (in the

close-ups just prior to the out-the-window shot).

Neil's point person for all this was Tom Jacobsen, one of the movie's producers, who said that the reason

we thought there was only one car is that they used two interchangeably--whichever one wasn't broken that day was the one that they shot. "It was trashed

when I got it," said Neil, who bought it about 15 years ago. "It was clearly hard used in filming. It was like a clown car."

Which is not the condition in which you'll find it today. Neil says he's used the last 15 years to build the "ultimate spyder" which he and Mark always

imagined: It is immaculately finished to concours condition. The 289 has been replaced with a 351W bored and stroked to 427 cubic inches and dyno'd at over

500hp; a T-5 manual replacing the automatic (Matthew "two-pedal" Broderick couldn't drive a stick); 13-inch disc brakes were fitted; and coilovers

installed in place of a torsion bar suspension. Neil did leave one little dent in the grille, just for history's sake, and cleaned up some little details,

like the MGB taillamps they used on the original. He says he outran a Viper on the street recently, because with 500 hp in a 2620-pound car, speed is

limited only by skill and traction.

Neil has now consigned the Ultimate Modena to Mecum's August auction in Monterey, where he'll have a substantial reserve. If there's

any justice, the next time you see it will be cruising the canyons of Chicago with a brunette in the passenger seat and a goofball crammed in the back.

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