Early in season three of Miami Vice, the faux Ferrari was blown up. - Miami Vice YouTube channel
Claudio D'Andrea
October 21, 2022
The scene looks ominous. The city streets are dark and Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” plays as the camera zooms into the 1980’s crime drama Miami Vice duo of ‘Sonny’ Crockett (Don Johnson) and ‘Rico’ Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) in the front seats of their black, slick sports car.
“How much time we got?” asks Sonny, wind blowing his hair.
Rico checks his watch: “Twenty-five minutes.”
Miami Vice’s Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas zip along in their imitation 1972 Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder,
built from a 1976 Corvette by Tom McBurnie. - corvetteforum.com
The camera shows the hood of their ‘Ferrari’ — a 1972 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder, apparently — as it whisks along Miami’s streets. It cuts to the next scene to show the car pulling up past a boat, alongside a dock and a “Benny’s Cafe” neon-lit sign where Johnson gets out and walks into a phone booth to make a call.
The drums kick in during the next scene and the pair take off again in their car, the city night lights shining on the hood of their car. The camera cuts back to show the headlights of a car bearing in on them and their cool Italian classic car.
Only problem is this car wasn’t Italian, but an American classic. The Ferrari knockoff was actually a C3 Corvette built by Tom McBurnie. He put together the 1976 Corvette with a 350 hp engine and three-speed automatic transmission that was used in the first two seasons of Miami Vice in place of the more expensive Ferrari sports car, then selling for between $100,000 and $200,000, according to the show’s fan Wiki site.
The actual 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder. - corvetteforum.com
The Italian automaker had refused to give one of its Spyders to the show but the fan response to the faux Ferrari was strong. A lawsuit against McBurnie followed and by the third season, the Corvette/Ferrari was blown to bits and the imposter went down in TV history as one of the great car doubles of the small screen.
Not to worry though, Corvette fans. As Motortrend points out, “Although the Ferrari knockoffs got the boot from the show, they were not actually destroyed.”
According to vintage automotive history writer Sam Maven, one of the cars used in closeups enjoyed a role in another show as a stunt car in the 1989 John Candy movie Speed Zone “and then sat in the desert for about 20 years before being restored, finally landing at the Volo Auto Museum.”
As for Ferrari, the Italian automaker had a change of heart after the Corvette ruse, offering Miami Vice the use of its 1986 Ferrari Testarossas as replacements in season three.