Like indulging in something at the county fair that’s guaranteed to give you a stomach ache, every once in a while we need to give a bit of bandwidth to one of my “special automotive friends”, otherwise known as retro-classics. William Rubano posted some shots of a particular favorite of mine, a Classic Tiffany. With a name like that, you know it’s something really truly special, and is guaranteed to give the owner massive prestige. Of course, that highly distinctive C-Pillar (and the rest of the body midsection) are the giveaway that this isn’t exactly a coachwork custom. But nobody else out ether will notice.
The Classic Tiffany was one of the many splendid products of America’s finest car maker, otherwise known as Classic Motor Carriages. They don’t exist anymore; something to do with losing a wire fraud case brought against them by the Florida (natch) Attorney General on behalf of hundreds of (stupid) clients who
The case stated that, over a period of eleven years, Classic Motor Carriages defrauded people by “knowingly and willfully” making “false and misleading statements, representations, and promises” in regard to the “quality of the kit car purchased, the delivery time to the customer and the required assembly time.” In addition, “false and fraudulent representations” were made to obtain deposits from prospective customers. Finally, the case stated that Classic Motor Carriages induced its customers to pay for kit cars, and then “failed to provide the automotive parts necessary for complete assembly.”
Classic Motor Carriages eventually pleaded guilty to the charges in summer of 1999, and was ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution. Shortly thereafter, sales plummeted, and Classic Motor Carriages was evicted from its headquarters. Around the same time, the owner of Classic Motor Carriages, George G. Levin, re-opened the kit car business under a new name: “Auto Resolutions” (later changed to “StreetBeasts”).
Enough of all that ugly stuff; let’s check out this exquisite beauty. I don’t know where to start. Maybe best not to start at all.
What you don’t want to do is poke your head inside. All of a sudden, it’s a whole different world in there, a normal one of gray vinyl and mouse fur carpeting. Where’s the Connolly hides and Wilton carpets?
Under the hood is what’s referred to as ” a fuel injected V-8 engine having fuel capacity of 5.0 liters”. You don’t say. Although 5 liters of fuel probbaly won’t get one down the road very far.
Since there’s not a good shot of the most important aspect of the Classic Tiffany, here’s one from the web. I do love those headlight…supports, or whatever you would call them. Very classy. Needs a few more horns, though.
Such a modest little name badge for such a big, brash car. Oh I know; no need for a name badge at all; everyone knows what this is the instant it comes down the street…and the see that C-Pillar.
“Be the first to comment…?”
Uh, maybe better not to!
Thank God Ford put a formal roof line on the Fox body Cougar. While it completely screwed up the lines, it gave custom “coach” builders an alternative to the G-body.
I’ve always wondered these Cougars used the Thunderbird rear quarter glass and simply flipped it over…
It’s not the same rear quarter glass. We proved that here a few years back with pictures flipped over.
Good to know- It’s amazing how many arcane automotive questions Curbside Classic has answered for me!
Considering the lengths to which manufacturers will go to save, literally, pennies in other areas, I’ve always found this sort of thing astonishing.
That being said, imagine the Aerobird and MN12 going from strength to strength if Ford had scotched the Cougar roofline and spent the money on a four-door sedan version instead.
“If you can’t say something nice…” Uh, nice pictures! LOL! 🙂
Bought the onliest thing I could say something “nice” about is….ah, ah..wait, it’ll come to me… Ahh, nice chrome passenger side mirror?
Seriously, I’d be embarrassed to drive it if it was given to me!
Every time I see one of these kit cars my eyes are drawn to the VW Beetle turn sigal parking lamp assemblies. I think the Excalibur used them as well. Some even used the huge ’73 up round “pumpkin” Beetle taillamps, which are even more half assed slap on something cheap looking. Which I guess fits in with the “tacky” theme. The plain Jane Cougar interior, (and greenhouse) even with fake wood, is a huge contrast to the flashy exterior.
Well, as the judges on “Chopped” say often to a contestant, “You didn’t transform the [basket ingredient] enough. You just put the [basket ingredient] on the plate.” Well, the main basket ingredient is still visible.
Needs a few more horns? How about these? They’re voiced on 50 inches of wind pressure! (Loud enough to balance the full organ at the other end of the building.)
Might be the perfect new car for JARED…
That was a good one. I wonder about the vanity plate…JARRED perhaps?
Jared lowered the price of the $14,995 Taurus to $4,995 according to an email I got from fleaBay this evening.
He needs to drop the price another $4000 and he might have a shot at selling the prestigious JAROD mobile
The curb scuffed whitewall on the red one seems such a fitting reflection on the motoring skills of someone who’d actually buy one of these.
Fugly.
Kramer: “But I’m not a pimp!”
I know!! I found something positive to say!!
After long and careful study, I noticed that it doesn’t have a vinyl roof!
There, I did it!
No, they used up the entire allotment on the inside of the car.
Those naughas are getting a mite scarce. They only use their hides on the Rolls Royce kit cars now.
I find the obvious use of the Cougar roof line and passenger compartment is what ruins the look completely. A more generic, retro appearing, mid section, and it could come across as a poor man’s Excalibur.
If you look closely at the silver one the midsection is donated from a Mustang.
From what I can gather from internet photos, the Classic Tiffany began as a Fox Mustang with a modified, padded, formal roof.
Then they started using aero-Cougars with the option of using the stock Cougar roof or having a similar padded roof as the Mustang cars. This continued on with the facelifted aero-Cougar that had an elongated quarter window which could, again, be covered over with the padded carriage roof.
The whole ‘Classic Tiffany’ thing seems to be a model (division?) of the Zimmer company, which, evidently, made other, similar cars like the Excalibur and Clenét using the same template of basing some sort of tasteless ‘neo-classic’ off of a modern chassis.
I had assumed the Mustang based ones to be some sort of “compact” or “value” model for whatever this company wanted to call themselves. Quick googling brings up examples with 87-93 interiors, so maybe it was concurrent, or possibly they went back to Mustangs when Ford switched to the less familiar MN12 platform for 89(I can’t recall a single example based on one)
Edit: I may have somewhat confirmed my suspicion as I was looking for a pic to post from this listing for one https://www.bobsclassics.com/91dc.html
a continuation of our best selling Tiffany cars, that stopped in 1988. the Destiny took over from 1989 to 1992 & only around 50 coupes & convertibles were ever made.
Good research! I just assumed the Mustang cars would have came before the Cougars. It also explains the lack of any MN12-based vehicles.
I almost hate to admit it, but I like that black car. The squared off roof line fits the theme better.
“Dog’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s”
Hahaha!
Are you an advertising genius, Sir?
Never knew these existed until now. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
I actually think these are okay, as good or even better than an Excalibur. Unfortunately, it looks like the designers “ran out of steam” when they got to about the “B” pillar. The GM personal coupes did the rear side windows and back half of the top much better. And the part after the back window just looks a bit plain…especially compared to the front part of the car.
Finally, the name Tiffany Classic borders on comically redundant….like, say, The Rolex Very Expensive watch.
As I posted in response to XR7Matt above, it looks like Classic Tiffany, Excalibur, and Clenét were all manufactured by the same company, Zimmer.
I don’t believe this is the case- as far as I know (and I may be very wrong) Zimmer only produced 2 cars, the Quicksilver and the Golden Spirit.
If you’re referring to the info on the Wikipedia page I believe that the source is just very poorly worded. What they meant (as far as I know) is that Zimmer was one of the “era” brands of the 70s-80s, along with companies like Excalibur and CMC.
Yeah, I see that now, particularly since there are separate entries for the Excalibur and Clenét cars.
These things used to be almost common around Miami. Bad as the pictured CMC cars are, the ones based on the 1987-1988 Cougar are even worse.
No wonder…
The 1987-88(notice they only made that ugly piece of crap, for 2 years?) Cougar and T-bird were uglier than the best seller 1983-86 Fox body Cougar/T-bird…even though the 87-88 was a Fox, as well.
Never liked that generation…Like it was a stretched out, rushed design, with an extra long nose… and those Euro headlights do NOTHING for a Brougham type of car, like those.
Save that European wannabe crap for the Taurus.
I got rid of my mint 84 Fox body Cougar GS, because of a broken shifter cable… Wish I NEVER did.
I replaced it with my 91 Alfa Romeo 164S. What a BIG mistake that was.
I actually prefer the ’87-’88 Thunderbird to the ’83-’86 model. To me it’s sleeker and less puffy. The only jarring note is the bright base grille – the Turbo nose is much better. The ’87 Cougar was beyond help as long as Mercury insisted on keeping that weird side window styling. It reminds me too much of the strange English Ford Consul Classic.
The 87-88 Fox Cougars were the best. The reason is simple: the XR7 Turbo, with a 5-speed transmission and the mighty intercooled-turbo 2.3 Lima. Big 4-wheel discs with ABS, stiff suspension, potent engine (and more power is very easy)…yeah.
87-88 XR-7s were 5.0 AOD only, they were essentially the equivelant of the same year Thunderbird sport, rather than Turbo Coupe like the the 84-86 XR-7s were.
I disagree, the Cougar looked better for 87, the 20th anniversary and 88 XR-7s with the Mustang GT turbine wheels in particular may have been the nicest looking Cougar since the first gens, and the flush headlights were very similar in design to the Lincoln Mark VII, perfectly fitting for the Cougar application.
Also, the so called front end extension was more egregious on the Tbird because it was designed to come to a point in the center like a beak, the Cougar nose was blunt, with pretty much the same amount of overhang as the 83-86s in reality.
Another advantage to growing up and living in the Bay Area. Never too common around here. Now I have to recover … I’m heading out for some deep-fried Twinkies.
Oh Lord won’t you scrap me a Classic Tiffany.
What I want to know is how that front axle is attached.
Foxes used a K member which carried the lower control arms, upper spring seat, steering rack and engine mounts. So I assum there is some sort of a frame that bolts where the K member used to mount and has a place for the K member to bolt on in its new position.
Here is a picture of a stock K member and an aftermarket tubular unit. http://www.dragracermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/DR-1405-BOLT-01-e1400008049440.jpg There would also have to be something that would hold the top of the struts and I’m going to assume that the extension structure would have a spot to keep the engine in the same place.
“Enough of all this ugly stuff ; let’s check out this exquisite beauty.”
Actually, I prefer to poke my head inside, as compared to the rest, the interior is pretty nice.
And one can’t see most of the ‘exquisiteness’ from there!
Happy Motoring, Mark
“Elegant, handcrafted, yet surprisingly affordable.” The democratization of luxury taken to its logical conclusion?
That could actually be a really good counterpoint to the End of Licury series. Modern non-luxury cars sell based on comfort and technology, and this seems like the opposite of that- spending the extra money on the exterior as opposed to the interior.
The colour is ok, shame about what its on.
There’s a white one in Clearwater Beach FL that’s a regular sighting on my vacations there. The exquisite quality of the chrome lights, bumpers, trim and wire wheels rusting from the coastal air really shows that exclusive craftsmanship.
Fun factoid: Even to this day the cocaine residue surely snorted off of every one of these cars will alert a drug sniffing dog.
From what I’ve seen of Clearwater, it would fit right in.
This seems like a vehicle in which cocaine was intimately involved in every step from conception to final assembly.
More likely LSD.
Heh, future concours restorations of these will have the factory cocaine rails meticulously recreated with the chalk marks!
I imagine that this is the kind of personality that would buy one of these
So shiney so shiney ……
Friend of mine had the Cougar on which this was the best. His son, who was about four years old at the time called it the “Tougar.” I don’t know what he’d call this car. Maybe “tugly.”
Uh… “the best” should be “based.” The auto-correct function on my cell phone done me wrong again.
Autocorrect is my worst enema!
Cars like this remind me of fake boobs. They fool the people who don’t know any better, but for those in the know, something just ain’t right here.
It seems like among all the interior options you could get on a Cougar, they went with the one that clashed most jarringly with the exterior mods. Red crushed velour was on offer, unfortunately not pillow-effect although that had been offered in ’83-4 with the original Fox dash, but still way better than this car’s taxi/work truck gray vinyl.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/index.php/NA/Mercury/1985-Mercury/1985_Mercury_Cougar_Brochure/1985-Mercury-Cougar-04
Per the brochure cloth was standard and the option was for leather, though I’m sure it was just the “seating surface” with the sides and backs being vinyl.
You say “work truck/taxi” like it is a BAD thing…? I like my carpet-delete interior!
The Zimmer was made near Miami, in Pompano. I believe it was based on the Fiero.
The original Zimmer company produced two models, the Golden Spirit built on a Mustang and the Quicksliver on the Fiero.
Awful.
I know now that it’s a Cougar/Mustang after scrolling thru the comments, but when I saw the first pic I thought it was a converted N body (Cutlass Calais or Buick Somerset possibly) with the engine and front suspension somehow stretched on some sort of Frankensteinian custom extension like a dragster because of the back window. I’d never heard of these before.
Those 80s jellybean Cougars with the erect rooflines were not the prettiest cats to bear the coveted Cougar name. Although they were stunning compared to the ugliest Cougars ever built in 80-82.
As for those neo classic aftermarket conversions, bluntly saying that they’re the most stylistically challenged blemishes to incorporate an engine and four wheels is the most polite expression to describe such ocular assaults.
Looking at that hideous red “Classic Tifany” right away makes me think: Liberace. The master of tastelessness and kitch.
Mr. Johnson, your car is ready…
And for those desiring this automotive excellence in a more handy European size, we have the perplexingly popular Beauford. Absolutely fooling nobody who knows anything at all about cars, this fibreglass repository of old Ford and BMC bits has been doing the rounds for so long now it’s almost heroic.
Classic Tiffany. Your one-stop shop for automotive cliches.
In Motley Crue’s The Dirt (I don’t know how to add an umlaut) one of the members of their road entourage had a Tiffany with a vanity plate that simply said “dealer” The road manager was not amused. I do have a soft spot for the late 70’s Excaliburs with the big block Chevys though.
While I’m not a fan of the Neoclassics, there were a few honest attempts. Richard Clenet’s cars were serious exercises in re-creating a 1930’s classic with (then) 1980’s technology. IIRC, they even were trying to make their own bespoke power trains. They equipped them with huge Lalique crystal radiator caps, which oddly, is the thing I remember most vividly about them.
The Stutz re-creations were a shot at series production of a Brooks Stevens designed neoclassic with GM chassis/powertrains. IMO, no worse than some of the late 50’s – early 60’s Forward Look Chrysler models designed by Virgil Exner.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Yankee Mitswoka!
I saw a Clenet II at a car show two weeks ago, and it’s fraudulent. You still see “Kit car” in it because of the yuuge compromises they had to make to modernize the classic proportions. The guy who has the reigns now projects a charlatan image. He even calls himself “Sir” because he got into the Knights of Malta. You read the website prose, and you see smoke and mirrors in the guise of journalism.
The neoclassic may be the perfect car for this moment in time.
The original Clenet used an old MG body as the base. I think the running gear and frame was Lincoln. Either Car and Driver or Road and Track did a very good article on the car and manufacturer. The Excalibar was designed by Brook Stevens and used Corvette running gear. I think the body was fiberglass and designed expressly for that car. Myself I would prefer a replica of an Auburn boat tail Speedster.
+1!?
A better idea, theoretically, because it uses well tried proportions. But people are so disappointed when it turns out not to be 80 years old.
That saga up to street beasts is great legal reading…
They went to an awful lot of trouble to modify a Cougar’s exterior for that “classic” look yet did nothing to change the interior since it looks all modern plastic Detroit fare. WTH?
I went to a “grand introduction” of one of the Zimmer cars at a dealer in Baltimore in the early ’80s. Sitting in the showroom next to the normal Datsuns and Saabs he carried, you had to wonder
1. What was he thinking?
2. Who would buy this thing?
However, there were people actually looking seriously at it. It was just such a perfect example of Baltimorean H.L. Menkin’s famous: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public”. Well, at least the shrimp (Prawns?) were big enough to make a great Classic Tiffany hood ornament.
When I visited my son in St. Louis a couple of years ago, I snapped a shot of one of these in his neighborhood. I didn’t care enough to research what kind of tacky neo-classic this was, so thanks for solving the mystery.
Projectile vomit on wheels.
OTOH, can we discuss the ’63 Chevy II wagon in the background of the top shot?
I always hated the look of the rear quarter windows on ’83-’86 Cougars. The ’87-’88 restyle was still oddball looking. AMC Gremlins and ’71-’72 Dodge Chargers had a similar style rear quarter window design which to my eye looked very, very odd.
You think American companies would learn what design flaws don’t work.
Apparently, they thought that weird quarter window would work on the ,then new, Jeep Compass, also.
Guess not.
That wincow curve is used on a LOT of new cars. It is probably destined to get a name like the Hoffmeister kink or whatever that is. Seems like every manufacturer uses it on SOMETHING. Nissan Rogue uses a modified version, Ford Escape, Nissan versa, Toyota Rav4, Hyundai Tucson, and on and on.
I kind of get that movie star types and other fat cats might shell out for an Excalibur in the ’70s, but it seemed like the genre had played itself out about the time the GM Colonnade died. These were way beyond their sell date.
Correcting the ad copy……….
Is this you? Behind the wheel of a gaudiest of Cougars, enjoying a wheezy lo po 5.0 burdened with several hundred pounds of elegant avoirdupois? Ford finally gets some handling in its mid-size car, and we then we jack with its weight, wheelbase and suspension until you are convinced the ’75 Lincoln Continental was a sports car. And, you get all this bonus starting at just THREE times the cost of a standard Cougar! If the trunk on a Fox Cougar isn’t already small enough four you, imagine making due with boot on this beauty! Much like your taste, production is limited! Only one person in a million will pull the trigger on a purchase like this, will it be you?
Someone mentioned these were known as ‘era’ cars because they were based on certain models that had a finite lifespan. I’d be willing to bet there’s still a market for them, but what would they use as the basis today? It’s not exactly like there are a lot of RWD cars left and even less with a roofline that could be used. Maybe a Dodge Challenger?
Ghastly and pretentious! The shame of these ersatz ‘classics’ is they divert real money that would be better used to restore and preserve real Classics.
To paraphrase H. L. Mencken: “No one every went broke underestimating the taste (or intelligence) of the American people”.
Clearly a car for people with more money than taste.