Yahoo Autos Our Modest Car Collection: Zim-Zám Golden Pizzazz Dream Car
Our Modest Car Collection, despite being modest, also contains the chariots of kings. Like this custom-bodied creation, the Zim-Zám Golden Pizzazz Dream Car, which once belonged to Trett MacKingsfield-the great actor, bodybuilder, and diet-pill innovator. The year was 1957, and MacKingsfield was at the height of his career. He had just made "Tourniquet!," the campy spy movie with Peter Sellers and Bela Lugosi. He was starring in the Western TV show "The Ballad of Shooter McGinty and His Faithful Steed, Tojo," which at the time was the most-viewed show east of the Mississippi. He was dating Janet Russell, the most eligible bachelorette of all Hollywood, despite the controversy that she was 25 years his junior and still in high school. And his line of diet-formula cookbooks, which replaced carbohydrates with Tareyton cigarettes, was selling in the millions.
Naturally, MacKingsfield wanted a car that emphasized his stature in life.
In September of 1957, on a chance flight to the Philippines to win back his third mistress, he met the flamboyant, mysterious Italian clothing designer known as Zim-Zám. The two hit it off immediately. Zim-Zám-who we know today was a schizophrenic Croatian man named Žvekć Mirąmïur-fancied himself a budding car designer and would later go on to lend his name to a number of poorly-conceived Chrysler personal luxury coupes.
A true craftsman, it took Zim-Zám more than seven years to singlehandedly build the body out of soft aluminum, mounted to a sapele/zebrawood chassis. The handformed body received 140 coats of paint that had been mixed with gold flake and De Beers diamond dust, 3600 gallons total. Each layer was hand-buffed with mink fur terrycloth, a process that usually took until lunchtime.
Similarly, no expense was spared inside. Leather covered every possible surface and was hand-massaged with a raw sandalwood/beef puree to ensure the utmost freshness. Each individual bucket seat-seven in all, to accommodate MacKingsfield's mistresses-contained their own cigarette lighter and ashtray, dome lights, foot massager, clock radio, and laudanum dispenser. The trunk contained a suit press that could dry-clean a full-length fur coat through the motions of the suspension alone. This reduced power loss from the mighty 485-horsepower V-8 engines, both of which are mounted side-by-side behind the four front wheels.
Each layer of paint was hand-buffed with mink fur terrycloth, a process that usually took until lunchtime.
Clever touches abound. Those three dramatic fins double as cigarette lighters, and the spare tire was mounted underneath the second Plexiglass dome. Hidden swiveling headlights were mounted every five feet across the front and sides. Perhaps most astoundingly, all six wheels contain tiny lightbulbs that at night illuminate with the message "SMOKE TAREYTONS." And underneath the futuristic bumper pods? Each pod contained an air gun, which could shoot up to three dozen copies of MacKingsfield's "Off That Crummy Body: 28 Days To A 'McGintier' You!" pamphlets, per minute, over the fences of golf courses and high schools.
Ultimately, the car cost a whopping $12,000 to build. After the car was completed, MacKingsfield drove it with Ms. Russell to both her graduation and the 1965 Academy Awards, where he won four awards for his starring role in "Tex Darrin: Zombie Slayer!"
Today, sadly, the Golden Pizzazz Dream Car lies in a neglected and unrestored state. We are currently raising money to complete a full restoration of MacKingsfield's dream car, which should cost an estimated $165,800,000.
h/t to Bobby Darin, for paving the way with his DiDia 150
