The Zonda has soldiered
on remarkably well, considering that it made its debut shortly after the turn
of the century with the C12 and was succeeded only recently by the Huayra,
which now comes in both hardtop and Roadster forms.
As for the Zonda Fantasma Evo pictured here, it
began life as a right-hand-drive Zonda F with manual transmission when it
rolled out of the factory in 2005, and the first of its makeovers took place
after it had been involved in a crash, necessitating extensive repair work.
Taking the opportunity to apply upgrades, the owner
commissioned the rebuild to Zonda 760 specification, with exposed carbon-fibre
bodywork from the Zonda Cinque and Zonda R. The car was renamed the 760 SH
after its owner’s initials, and later on again renamed Fantasma – Italian for
ghost.
Come 2017, and the Fantasma has been given another
round of updates. From the specifications of the Cinque and R, the Fantasma has
since been installed with a manual transmission, instead of the sequential unit
as specified in the former two iterations. The beating heart of the Zonda
Fantasma is the similarly long-serving AMG-sourced 7.3 litre,
naturally-aspirated V12 engine driving the rear wheels exclusively.
The Zonda has survived long after the advent of the
6.0 litre, turbocharged V12 Huayra which was supposed to succeed it, albeit in
a string of one-off editions commissioned for specific customers.
