Kevin Zollars admits he wasn’t a Thunderbird guy. He wasn’t even a Ford guy. But loyalties and allegiances can change in a hurry when a genuine “barn find” trophy car comes along, and Zollars wasn’t going to pass up his chance to have a great story to tell, and a great vehicle to reintroduce to the world.
Zollars’ beautiful yellow 1959 T-Bird looks pretty much as it did six years ago when he spotted it in a barn for the first time not far from his home in Earlville, Ill. It’s a lot cleaner and better mechanically, but cosmetically, it is still an unrestored survivor.
“I was definitely not looking for it,” chuckles Zollars. “I’m a veterinarian and I was on a call and I was just driving by and I saw the nose sticking out of this barn. To be honest, I was never that interested in the ‘Square Birds,’ but as luck would have it, the owner of the car came into the clinic the next day. His name was Steve Moyer and I asked him about the car and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m thinking about selling it.’ It had been his father’s car. He was elderly and he got in a car accident and had passed away. It was a pretty tragic thing, and the family never wanted to do anything with his car so they just let it sit for 10 or 12 years.
“So I went to look at it and I brought my tools and a battery with me and I was able to get it started right away. I could tell it had a push rod bent or something… It was making a noise and that’s what I thought it was. But I got the top down and looked it all over and just fell in love with it. [laughs]. It’s like a little rocket ship. My wife [Jane] always loved the T-Birds, but the ones that were a little earlier. I thought I better bring her over to look at it and she looked and she fell in love with it and that was it.”
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