I found a Zephyr Z7 on Craigslist in Salt Lake City a mere 420 miles away from where I live. The ad was poorly written with very little information and the pictures gave me just enough info to make me curious, plus the car was listed for only $400.

The ad was 30 days old so I took a chance and tried to contact the owner. Several days later after not hearing from the owner I gave up. Then out of the blue I received a response, they still had the car. I emailed asking a few questions, they were slow to respond and the answers were vague at best. The last question I asked was what kind of engine and transmission did it have. Finally a couple of days later they responded they didn't know but would send me a picture from under the hood. A day later the picture arrived, it was a 302 with an automatic. Finally we were getting someplace!

After a couple more email exchanges I took a chance and a friend and I drove to SLC to look at the car. Turned out it's pretty decent, nice western car no rust except for surface rust here and there. Had some body filler in the right rear quarter up high but otherwise looked good. 302 auto, factory air conditioning, P/S, P/B and an AM 8 track radio!!!

The car hadn't run in 8 months but we came prepared with gas, tools, spare battery and an air tank. Poured a couple of gallons of gas in the tank, a little in the carb, cranked it a few times and it fired right up! this deal was looking better all the time. The motor sounds rough but it runs and the transmission had all it's gears.

I made the owners an offer, headed to a local UHaul dealer and rented an auto transport trailer. We loaded the car up and headed home all the time feeling better and better about the car.

The Zephyr has some 78 and 79 features so I'm not sure what is going on with it. Odometer is showing 63,000. Door panels appear to be 79, has the later style hood prop rod.

As you can see the car was built in July of 1978 in Kansas City. Looks like the DSO was Denver which makes sense.Attachment 117103Attachment 117102Attachment 117099Attachment 117100Attachment 117101

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it as I have two other Futura's. Probably a restomod of some sorts but I don't like removing all that cool OEM equipment under the hood.

The trouble with these cars in this condition is it's not worth restoring from an investment point of view, imho, so you build it for what you like.

KellyAttachment 117093Attachment 117092Attachment 117091Attachment 117090Attachment 117089