a supercar you've probably never heard of!

[Forthright MC]

well, some of you may have if your well up on extremely rare cars!
this is the Isdera Commendatore 112i,



this was supposed to be a supercar to rock the establishment back in '93 but before it reached production the company went bust and the car in the pic is the only fully finished, road legal example!
its powered by a Merc V12 (not hugely powerful by todays standards!) and they say its capable of about 212MPH (it gets used too! this car has covered quite a few miles by Merc engineers apparently!)
i think it looks great! certainly a very unique looking car. its a shame Isdera went under as this could have probably changed the supercar landscape quite considerably!
hope you like it, heres the supercars link with a bit more info, http://www.supercars.net/cars/808.html

Edited by Forthright MC on Thursday 31st May 22:15

[sstein]

I think with the doors closed that would look like a manatee!

-

Stuart

[johnnymaestro]

God those doors are thick!

My Uncle tells me the story of the Yamaha OX-99 project he and his company were involved in (tooling and design). And I was at Ricardo Transmissions a few weeks ago (did Macca F1, XJ220, 16/4 Veyron Gearboxs, amongst many others)who were supposed to do the Yam's G'box. An interesting car that was a huge failure.

[ali_khl]

Very interesting thread!

Strangely, there are a couple manufacturers from the 90s who produced niche supercars with high-end Merc engines in very limited numbers. Lotec was one of them, and these were truely 'hand made' (check out the interior!) race cars for the road. This is the only 'C1000' made, and Mercedes allowed them to use the 3-pointed star emblem as at the time they were collaborating with them (ie. paying a pretty penny for the crate 5.6 V8) on this project.

Edited by ali_khl on Saturday 26th May 22:15

Edited by ali_khl on Saturday 26th May 22:17

[Benmac]

I used to drool over the Isdera Imperator as a kid. I liked the periscope. I think it was based on a Merc prototype.

[Forthright MC]

ali_khl said:

Very interesting thread!

Strangely, there are a couple manufacturers from the 90s who produced niche supercars with high-end Merc engines in very limited numbers. Lotec was one of them, and these were truely 'hand made' (check out the interior!) race cars for the road. This is the only 'C1000' made, and Mercedes allowed them to use the 3-pointed star emblem as at the time they were collaborating with them (ie. paying a pretty penny for the crate 5.6 V8) on this project.

Edited by ali_khl on Saturday 26th May 22:15

Edited by ali_khl on Saturday 26th May 22:17

i remember looking/reading about the Lotec when it was announced. it had a lot of potential and could have been an awesomely fast machine! the Veyron might never have been concieved if that was ever put into full scale production!
the Isdera in the pic has Merc badges on the wheels and a Merc steering wheel too! (theres a few other pics in the link) there was another model before the 112i called the Imperator 108i IIRC, that did slightly better as around 30 of those were produced in total!

ETA, i see a pic of an imperator has apeared above! another fascinating looking machine IMO!

Edited by Forthright MC on Saturday 26th May 22:35

[jdelmo]

ali_khl said:

Am I the only one that sees a resemblance to the Zonda?

[Petros]

yup

[Sharief]

Is/was Isdera Spanish?

Sounds Spanish.

[KB_S1]

Nissan Mid 4

Interesting car that never happened. Led to the Skyline GTR though with its ATESSA and HICAS.
Front looks like an NSX a bit.

[tog]

Benmac said:

I used to drool over the Isdera Imperator as a kid. I liked the periscope. I think it was based on a Merc prototype.

Looks like the Merc C111 rotary engined concept. Did this also use a rotary?

[zaktoo]

tog said:

Benmac said:

I used to drool over the Isdera Imperator as a kid. I liked the periscope. I think it was based on a Merc prototype.

Looks like the Merc C111 rotary engined concept. Did this also use a rotary?

Nope, V8.

[Forthright MC]

Sharief said:

Is/was Isdera Spanish?

Sounds Spanish.

no they were German. the company was set up by a chap called Eberhard Schulz and his 2 sons. he was an ex Porsche engineer who also oversaw several well known Merc prototypes from the 60's (including the C111) after those cars were canned, Shulz set up Isdera with backing from Mercedes.

[Chris71]

I feel a little embarassed to admit this, but I know the Isdera, purely because it was in a computer game. Need for speed 2 I think.....

[360boy]

The only one of those, that I ever saw in the UK was on fire in Central London. Total write off IIRC.

[dougc]

Chris71 said:

I feel a little embarassed to admit this, but I know the Isdera, purely because it was in a computer game. Need for speed 2 I think.....

Spot on. In light blue I think.

[Bodo]

Forthright MC said:

Sharief said:

Is/was Isdera Spanish?

Sounds Spanish.

no they were German. the company was set up by a chap called Eberhard Schulz and his 2 sons. he was an ex Porsche engineer who also oversaw several well known Merc prototypes from the 60's (including the C111) after those cars were canned, Shulz set up Isdera with backing from Mercedes.

The Isdera Imperator is based on the CW311, which Schulz developed in 1978 with b+b in Frankfurt:

[Trooper2]

KB_S1 said:

Nissan Mid 4

Interesting car that never happened. Led to the Skyline GTR though with its ATESSA and HICAS.
Front looks like an NSX a bit.

Looks like they borrowed rather heavily from the BMW M1 to me.

[groomi]

dougc said:

Chris71 said:

I feel a little embarassed to admit this, but I know the Isdera, purely because it was in a computer game. Need for speed 2 I think.....

Spot on. In light blue I think.

[dinkel]

http://www.isdera.de/isdera.php

Terrible website . . . but they seem to exist still . . .