The Zimmer Golden Spirit has long been a fixture in the classic car landscape, caught between being the ultimate expression of wealth and excess to something that has become a sideshow-grade curiosity on the project car landscape. While its looks are downright ridiculous in today’s environment of cookie-cutter designs, there’s actually a compelling reason to look at these not as a whimsical luxury car from a bygone era but a muscle car with eccentric duds. It this the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing? You decide, by checking it out here on Facebook Marketplace for $7,000. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Rocco B. for the find.
While it never been considered a muscle car, perhaps there’s an argument to be made that it is one. After all, it sports Ford Mustang running gear, including a 5.0L V8 under the hood. Is it going to blow your socks off? No, not at all – but we all know how vast the Ford aftermarket is for the Fox and Panther platforms. The Recaro interior is perhaps the best feature, along with the 3-spoke steering wheel, woodgrain dash, and expansive back seat. It’s a comfort cruiser in every way, and with some headers and an exhaust system, it will turn heads in more ways than one.
But driving one is certainly an acquired taste. It’s safe to say the era of the neoclassical cruiser is not coming back any time soon, even though restomods are currently all the rage. However, some die-hard fans of vintage luxury have taken matters into their own hands and made suitably obnoxious updates to push the ridiculous factor to the moon. Someone did take an S197 chassis Mustang and mold it with a classic Zimmer body, and the results were interesting. It certainly showcased the familiar trope of anything becoming cool again once nostalgia kicks in.
The seller points to the mileage in the cluster, and it appears to show just over 3,000 – but I’m not entirely sure. Plus, these older odometers are somewhat fail-prone, so I’m not sure how much I’d trust it. The bodywork appears clean and the car does run, so it likely isn’t too monumental of a project. The question is just who is out there looking for a project like this. Reviving an old Zimmer is clearly for someone passionate about this unusual brand, but that has to be a limited market at this point. Would you buy it to restore back to OEM condition or turn it into a wild restomod?
Weren’t these made out of the Mercury Cougar cars more specifically? I know the Mustang, Cougar, Thunderbird and Lincoln Mark series were all the FOX platform.