Jay Gatsby, the titular character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, is a too-rich socialite who embodies the extravagance of the roaring '20s.
His pasttime? Throwing exquisite parties. His car? A gaudy, bright yellow Rolls-Royce.
It's the kind of car Paul Zimmer probably had in mind when he founded Zimmer Motorcars.
Our car last week, a 1988 Richard Petty Pontiac with a $18,000 sticker, nabbed a record for Worth-Less votes: only 25 of 510 readers – five percent – said that price fit. The other 95 percent found the offer a little high.
This week's car comes from the same vintage, and lands near the same price-point, and yet looks nothing like a Grand Prix.
No, the Zimmer Golden Spirit looks a lot more like a Duesenberg or a 1920s Rolls-Royce, with a big chrome grille, side-mounted spare tires and long, flowing fenders.
It was built by New York-based Zimmer Motorcars, a, um, "coachbuilder" specializing in cars that combined modern safety and conveniences with a neo-classic look.
"Built" is not the right word, though: Zimmer's cars actually consisted of a fibreglass body dropped over an old Mercury Cougar or Ford Mustang chassis. (Can you make out the '88 Cougar in the roof and doors?) That allowed them to skip crash testing and emissions regulations and such.
Our 300,000-kilometre example this week comes out of the Belleville, Ontario area via a Kijiji ad with the title "COOL RIDE."
And it is cool, isn't it? As usual, what we want to know from you is whether it's worth what the seller's asking. In this case that's $16,800.
P.S. If you like the idea of this car, but don't like its Cougar genes, we should let you know Zimmer, which folded in '88, has been revived. They're still building Mustang-based Golden Spirits.
For sale in Trenton, Ontario for $16,800
His pasttime? Throwing exquisite parties. His car? A gaudy, bright yellow Rolls-Royce.
It's the kind of car Paul Zimmer probably had in mind when he founded Zimmer Motorcars.
Our car last week, a 1988 Richard Petty Pontiac with a $18,000 sticker, nabbed a record for Worth-Less votes: only 25 of 510 readers – five percent – said that price fit. The other 95 percent found the offer a little high.
This week's car comes from the same vintage, and lands near the same price-point, and yet looks nothing like a Grand Prix.
No, the Zimmer Golden Spirit looks a lot more like a Duesenberg or a 1920s Rolls-Royce, with a big chrome grille, side-mounted spare tires and long, flowing fenders.
It was built by New York-based Zimmer Motorcars, a, um, "coachbuilder" specializing in cars that combined modern safety and conveniences with a neo-classic look.
"Built" is not the right word, though: Zimmer's cars actually consisted of a fibreglass body dropped over an old Mercury Cougar or Ford Mustang chassis. (Can you make out the '88 Cougar in the roof and doors?) That allowed them to skip crash testing and emissions regulations and such.
Our 300,000-kilometre example this week comes out of the Belleville, Ontario area via a Kijiji ad with the title "COOL RIDE."
And it is cool, isn't it? As usual, what we want to know from you is whether it's worth what the seller's asking. In this case that's $16,800.
P.S. If you like the idea of this car, but don't like its Cougar genes, we should let you know Zimmer, which folded in '88, has been revived. They're still building Mustang-based Golden Spirits.
For sale in Trenton, Ontario for $16,800
refresh
http://autos.sympatico.ca/worth-it-worth-less/poll/96/1988-zimmer-golden-spirit-worth-it-or-worth-less
1988 Zimmer Golden Spirit: Worth It or Worth Less?
Is this custom Cougar's cost cool? Or should the price on thiz Zimmer be slimmer?
