In our modern culture of innumerable niches and hyper-focused interests, it’s hard to remember that there was once a time when the concept of celebrity was a much more comprehensive sort of thing. There were just some people that pretty much everybody knew at least some crucial information about, even if they weren’t necessarily fans of or even consumed any of that celebrity’s work. Liberace was one of those celebrities.
Liberace was a pianist, but so much more than that. He was a shorthand for a very specific kind of showy, overdone opulence, a wild exaggeration of luxury, a gleefully unhinged campy take on the business of existence, one absolutely slathered with rhinestones and sequins. He was an incredible showman, above all else, and it seemed like everyone understood this implicitly. If you described something to someone as being Liberace-like, you could almost see the glint of gemstones and gold in their eyes as images popped into their head.
Maybe it’s better to just show you. I’m not sure words can really adequately capture all that was going on there:
I mean, holy crap, right? There are white sequined tuxedoes and a whole herd of white fluffy Pomeranians and glittering fully-rhinestone’d pianos and, hell, the man was popping bubbles in a gilded bathtub. I think the bath towels were mink. Whatever the point was Liberace was trying to make, I think it’s safe to say he made it.
As a perpetually sloppy man who still wears t-shirts I had in high school, this is a way of life I have a lot of trouble wrapping my greasy brain around, but I respect the intense and lifelong commitment to the bit. And this was reflected in the cars he chose as well; in that clip above, I’m sure you noticed the glittering Rolls-Royce, for example.
Liberace was the highest-paid entertainer in the world between the 1950s and 1970s, which meant he could buy pretty much any cars he wanted, and he did just that. A bit later in his career, he would buy a very Liberace-coded car, a Zimmer Golden Spirit, one of the most overdone and exuberant Neoclassical cars of the era. That’s the car that our own Autopian co-founder Beau owns, and is deciding if he’d like to sell:
What’s incredible is that even in its native, already absurdly opulent state, which included such things as 18K gold-plated medallions, crystal vases, genuine teak running boards and more …
… it still wasn’t enough. So Liberace added his trademark signature to the dual spare tire holders:
…and, of course, added working candelabras all over the thing.
There are seven in total: the huge five-pronged one on the hood, single ones on each of the front turn signals, one each on the taillights, and a pair of two-candle ones on each B-pillar, mounted to the fake Landau bars.
There was also extra-deep and plush carpet added, including in the trunk, which has to be one of the most lavishly carpeted trunks of any car, ever. All of this added up to a car not just built specially for Liberace, but especially built for Liberace, as the dashboard plaque proudly notes:
It’s funny, for all of this unhinged opulence, under all of the filigree and vejazzlement was just a humble Fox-body Mustang:
If you look at the doors, you can see it. Oh, and the front turn signals are from a VW Beetle, minus the candelabras, of course.
Neoclassic cars in general are definitely not everyone’s chalice of Cristal, and I get that. They’re somewhat unserious things, delighting in how overdone they are, and, at their best, don’t take themselves too seriously. I described them in an earlier article this way:
“I think the term originated with Virgil Exner’s attempts to revive the Stutz and Duesenberg marques in the 1960s, and then popularized with the Excalibur soon afterwards. Neoclassical cars are, essentially, modern cars (well, modern for whatever era they were built) but re-bodied to look like dramatic cars from the 1920s and 1930s. Generally, they tend to go for long and low and big, swooping fenders and side pipes and lots of chrome and jewelry and are wildly showy things. Generally, if you’re the sort of person who is willing to wear a gold chain that would be substantial enough to secure a schooner to the dock, then maybe a neoclassic car is for you.”
In the case of Liberace, though, they’re absolutely perfect. Of course Liberace had a Zimmer Golden Spirit, and of course it was made extra-opulent and festooned with electric candelabras and everything. There’s rarely a case as clear as this where you can take one look at a car and know exactly whose car it must be, but this is absolutely one such case.
I know Liberace isn’t the huge cultural presence he once was, but this car is a real artifact of that time. I know Beau had seen Liberace perform in Vegas when he was a little kid in the 1970s with his family, and the sheer spectacle of it all made an impact on him, just as it made an impact on Elvis Presley, Elton John, and Prince, just to name a few performers who took some cues from that dedicated showman.
This was also one of the first cars Beau acquired for his collection, so I know there’s some sentimental attachment to the car. But is that enough to keep it? What would he do with this thing, anyway? Help him decide!
If I bought that car, I would put the candelabras in storage and repaint it as the Cruella DeVille car.
This needs to be dailied by someone who will make memories with it. Let it go to some broke college kid for four figures as long as they send periodic updates.
Sell it. This belongs in a museum on the grounds of Mar-A-Lago.
I consider myself a pretty open-minded car guy… I can appreciate almost anything if done well. But the neoclassical cars… I just cannot understand the appeal.
I think the era had a lot to do with it. I remember the 80’s was all about conspicuous consumption, and “he who dies with the most toys wins.” This sort of thing dovetailed nicely into that mindset.
Liberace was just before my time, but the people who made the media I consumed had grown up with him, so I still saw enough jokes and references to put together what Liberace-coded meant. Still crazy that a flamboyant pianist was peak celebrity, but I like it? It feels kind of quiant by today’s standards.
Anyways, sell the damn thing. Unless Beau is a Liberace diehard, I don’t see the appeal.
Yeah, I’m starting to push 60 and only know Liberace from the jokes. Reading up, Liberace was the first big “concert resident” of Las Vegas. It’s now commonplace to have performers in Vegas doing the same show every night, but Liberace seems to have been the first.
As such, this car should be in Las Vegas being displayed.
Because it’s history, not present day now. The youngest person that I can imagine knowing anything about Liberace would have been 10 years old and was forced to watch a TV show biography about him in 1988 because they had to hold the antenna. That human antenna from that show would be 48 today.
Sounds like we are about the same age. I remember his guest appearances on various variety shows like Sonny and Cher, Donnie and Marie, or things like that. Pretty sure he also had a guest appearance on The Love Boat and other scripted shows. Essentially he popped up on TV enough that young me was well aware of who he was.
I knew who he was, but didn’t care. I would be watching TV and some guy would come out in an outfit that was over-the-top for Cher and play some songs on a piano. (How he could play the piano with all those rings, I’ll never know.) When he played songs I didn’t know, people would clap. When he played songs I did know, he made the worse in general my making them smaltzy.
Even my parents (born in the 1920s) weren’t big fans of him. He was Lawerence Welk in a cape with no accent a slightly better jokes.
And Batman.
I’m 71. I believe this car was displayed in Las Vegas before the Liberace Museum (!) shut down. And I do remember him and his giant closet.
It’s so trumpesque that, well, I have no educated words for it.
It’s the circle of life.
It is, but the difference is Liberace always seemed to be slyly in on the joke. He knew his gold-plated, bejeweled and sequined act was over the top.
Fair enough
My eyes! I’m looking for the option to “burn it.”
First thought when I saw the headline photo was that this was Jeremy Clarkson’ Mitsuoka from Eurocrash.
Is it legal to drive it with those candelabras ready being so unsafe?
I’d be worried about getting stopped and having it confiscated for presidential use.
I don’t know what’s weirder. That this is one of the first cars Beau acquired or that an ordinary AM/FM Stereo Cassette audio system was #2 on the Standard Appointments list. In any case, I am torn whether Beau should sell this. It’s certainly unique. Almost as unique as Liberace himself. But Beau made his thoughts known and I am not going to argue with him.
Since you probably would drive it very, very little, you should sell it, unless you are very much enamored with it.
It’s not likely to appreciate more than the stocks you could invest in with the proceeds, and/or other amazing cars that would be more to your liking.
The market for this car was probably a market of one, who has now passed on. If you’re lucky, there will be a buyer (a car museum, perhaps?) who will pay what you ask for it.
I suspect this is one you’ll lose money on. Like real estate, you aren’t going to win them all.
Some cars you buy and sell, some you adopt. Drive it proudly, Beau.
Love the Pink Floyd reference, but I voted for sell. As mentioned elsewhere, get it sold while there’s still Liberace fans with eff-it money out there.
On another note…
Does anyone here recall the old joke about Liberace and the plumber?
I do not. Please continue.
I’m pretty sure I remember seeing this at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas back in the ’90s, which was also when they had that blue Eldorado with a mini bar in the back that was supposedly the last new car Elvis took delivery of before he died. They also had an armored Mercedes-Benz limo that was allegedly Hitler’s or one of his inner circle, and which still showed evidence of where some US Army personnel had tested out the bullet proof window glass.
Zimmers hadn’t been out of production all that long at the time, so it was probably still a pretty new car. They were done in Pompano Beach, Florida, the Zimmer company’s original business was travel trailers and mobile homes, and they were supposed to have built pretty high quality and expensive ones. At any rate, it seems like the quality of the cabinetry and fittings was a lot nicer that what you usually got in trailers. Zimmer cars were also certainly better trimmed out inside than most of the other neoclassics of the time, I mean, if you were the sort of buyer who wanted one of these cars, might as well at least get one of the better built examples.
I always thought they should have just had a side business dressing up Mustangs, forget the neoclassical styling, just do the interior upgrades- the Recaro seats and quality leather, thick wool carpets, burl wood dash, gold spoked Nardi steering wheel, those are all nice improvements over the cheap plastic the cars had new, getting all that in something that remained identifiably a Mustang would have been nice
As a Milwaukee area native, we have a sort of weird attachment to Liberace. Sell it anyway as seeing it will cause either retina detachment or straight up blindness
Sell it to Trump (cash only, please). He could park it outside the White House to add even more gilt and glamor and absurdity.
Seriously? Thanks for ruining my mood.
He could make a gift of it to someone, but I shouldn’t harp on it.
She’d be better off with a Ford Fathom. Clean diapers in the frunk, dirty ones in the pickup box and printer on the back seat.
This is DEFINITELY one that’s gotta go. Maybe he can sell it to Elton John.
Sir Elton had a Panther De Ville
If he still has it, he can park the Zimmer next to it. It’ll look GREAT.
No shade on the car. Neoclassics aren’t my thing (and I would find it hilariously fitting if that car had a 200 inline six – or even better, the 2.3 liter four cylinder), but that thing should be sent on its way to someone who really, really loves it and wants to show it off everywhere.
It *IS* vehicular Liberace, for sure.
And this is the best, absolute best, use of a Liberace sample, courtesy of De La Soul:
https://youtu.be/1Zy7TcN6Q8c?si=P1LeUHA3wQ_Y7LaQ
worked at a shop about 15 years ago and there was a guy who would bring his zimmer in ever 3 weekends or so. it was always something. that thing was such a piece of crap. especially the electricals just an absolute mess of wires everywhere no looms or anything. that dude made the adjective “eccentric” seem TOO boring.
Sell it. Won’t be long before you run out of buyers who know who Liberace was.
It would take far too long to get into appropriate clothing to drive such a thing, I wouldn’t want to stray too far from the car while wearing them, and I don’t think I want those clothes in my closet in the first place.
While it’s a conversation starter, that’s not always desirable. I’ve never been one for celebrity stuff (Logon security question: what celebrity would you most like to have lunch with?” None, what else you got? Oh wait! David Lynch. Shit, he’s dead. OK, next question.) and these cars—while funny—are not my thing, though being even more OTT than a regular Zimmer makes it more appealing in a way that a Zimmer could be appealing. IDK, I’d have no interest in driving it around, not enough people know who Liberace is anymore (much less recognize this infamous car) to appreciate seeing it (though, conversely, I think it’s too associated with him to pass as my own pimp mobile supreme), and it would probably be better off in a museum of some sort where the people going would more likely know what they’re looking at and want to see it. And they could have their own conversations and tell their predictable jokes without my involvement.
These are about the most awkwardly done “retro” cars out there and not in a good way.
“lets take out a perfectly usable trunk and replace it in a vinyl covered foot locker instead! “
The CMC Tiffanys based on the Cougar are probably worse
i saw one of these at my work parking lot like 10 years ago. i was like who in the cruella deville drove it?
StudioCanal and Zack Snyder are planning a reimagining of “Escape From New York.” The Duke of New York is going to need a new candelabra adorned ride and Liberace’s Zimmerman would be perfect. Of course, with Issac Hayes gone to the Great Beyond, they’re gonna need a new Duke, too. I vote for Idris Elba.