Isdera AG or Ingenieurbüro für Styling, Design und Racing (English: Engineering Company for Styling, Design and Racing) is a privately run German specialty automaker and design service provider based in Saarwellingen, with a design studio in Munich and a design subsidiary in Shanghai, China. The company was founded and formerly based in Leonberg, Germany. Each high-performance sports car is hand-built by a small team of craftsmen, and the only way to purchase a brand new Isdera was to call the CEO directly. Each vehicle is custom built for its original buyer, and a waiting period of twelve months is to be expected.

erator gte

The Isdera Erator GTE is a prototype of a super sports car by the German automobile designer Eberhard Schulz, completed in 1969 .

Schulz developed and built the car in a large laundry room and in his front yard in the East Frisian Klostermoor in the late 1960s . At that time, his company operated under the name Ednilreg Automobil Styling und Prototypenbau.  A small series or series production was not planned, the Erator GTE is a one-off.

The two-seater mid-engine - coupe based on a welded tubular steel space frame with glued GRP -Karosserie and French doors . It went through three development stages, the final version therefore bears the addition Mk III under the type designation at the rear end . The first version had a 40 kW flat engine with D-Jetronic injection from the VW 1600 , with which the 760 kg sports car reached a top speed of 175 km / h. By installing the in the Ford Capri and P7The V6 engine with 2.3 l displacement used doubled the engine output, which increased the speed to over 220 km / h.

With the V8 racing engine, based on the Mercedes-Benz M 117 with 5 l displacement,  the Isdera Erator GTE reaches a top speed of 315 km / h and is therefore faster than the Ford GT40 and Lamborghini Miura models built at the same time.

The CW 311 is a supercar study presented in 1978. The name was the result of its cw value, 0.311.

Eberhard Schulz, the designer for Porsche in the 1970s had a vision of a successor to the Mercedes-Benz 300SL. For a partner, he found the tuner Rainer Buchmann. Together they developed the CW 311 based on the Mercedes and Porsche parts. The Mercedes-Benz star was put on the car without asking permission from the manufacturer. Because of the amount of publicity the car was getting, Daimler-Benz, allowed them to keep it. The CW 311 is the only car developed independently of Mercedes-Benz which may carries the star.

The successor was released in 1983, being the Isdera Imperator 108i.

The body of Isdera consists of fibreglass, mounted on a tubular space frame. The car was fitted with the Mercedes M-100 engine from the 450 SEL 6.9. The nearly seven-litre eight-cylinder was able to produce 375 hp. The car was on par with the Italian Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari 512 BB.

The prototype remained a one-off, and disappeared after a last appearance in 1982. It is not even known if it still exists, or has been scrapped in the meantime.

spyder

The small carmaker Isdera designed in 1983 in collaboration with Mercedes this Isdera Spyder, in fact, the roadster version of the Isdera Imperator. Under the hood they put a Golf GTI engine but that was before the knock on Mercedes door for a better engine.  It's a rear mid engined rear-wheel drive Convertible. With 137 BHP, the naturally aspirated 1.8 Litre 8v Inline 4 petrol engine accelerates this Spyder 033i to 100 km/h in 7.8 seconds and on to a maximum speed of 199 km/h. Having a kerb weight of  just920 kg.
From 1985 Mercedes replaced the engine by a Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 ( 185HP) block and got the car type designation 033-16 . Later, there were modern Mercedes engines used under the name 036i .

imperator 108i

1984-1993  30 produced

The Isdera Imperator 108i was a low-volume German sports car produced from 1984 to 1993. The Imperator 108i was born out of the Mercedes-Benz CW311 concept car from 1978, which Eberhard Schulz, who at the time worked as a design engineer for Porsche, designed in his free time. Mercedes-Benz had no interest in putting the CW311 into production, so Schulz established his own engineering company, Isdera, to produce the car under his own brand.

Implementing a fiberglass body upon a tubular steel spaceframe, the Isdera Imperator 108i was comparable to the exotic sports cars of its day.

 The original Imperator 108i featured a 5.0 L  Mercedes-Benz M117 V8 engine which gave the vehicle a top speed of 283 km/h  and a 0–100 km/h  acceleration time of 5.0 seconds. As Mercedes-Benz developed more powerful V8 engines, they were used in the Imperator 108i. Later engines included a 5.6 L  Mercedes-Benz M117 V8, a 5.6 L  AMG V8 and a 6.0 L  AMG V8 which saw an eventual increase of power from 300 hp  to 390 hp, with both AMG engines featuring advanced 32-valve cylinder heads.

Unusually, the Imperator 108i featured a rear-view periscope in place of conventional rear view mirrors which gave the driver the rear view, creating a bulge on the roof. It also featured gullwing doors.

Inside, the car featured a luxurious interior and sourced many interior components from the Porsche 928.

commendatore 112i

The Isdera Commendatore 112i is a concept car. Introduced at the 1993 Frankfurt Motor Show, the 112i had a compact and sleek aerodynamic body work and was to be a successor to the Imperator 108i but the lack of financial reserves led the company into bankruptcy and only one prototype was completed. The new car called the Commendatore 112i was named in honour of Enzo Ferrari (Ferrari was awarded the title Commendatore II). Commendatore means Knight Commander in Italian language.

The engine was a 6.0-litre Mercedes-Benz M120 V12 unit (first used in the Mercedes-Benz C112 and later used in the Mercedes-Benz SL600 AMG and the Pagani Zonda S). It was especially modified to cope with the manual transmission. The modifications included an in-house developed flywheel and a Bosch ECU. The engine generated a maximum power output of 414 PS  at 5,200 rpm and 580 N⋅m  of torque at 3,800 rpm. The Isdera Commendatore 112i was claimed to accelerate to 100 km/h  in 4.7 seconds and having a top speed of 341 km/h.

The 112i had advanced technologies at the time, including gull-wing doors, a gull-wing engine cover for easier access to the engine, a velocity sensitive chassis which lowered the car by 76 mm at high speeds, an active suspension system and an electronically controlled airbrake.

silver arrow c112i

In 1999, the Commendatore 112i was modified by a Swiss businessman and was now called the Silver Arrow C112i and was powered by a Mercedes-Benz, 612 PS  V12. The car's top speed was recorded at 370 km/h  during testing. At the time of its introduction, the Silver Arrow was the only car in the world to feature an automatically lifting airbrake.

autobahnkurier ak116i

In 2006, Isdera introduced the long-awaited, breath-taking Autobahnkurier AK116i, which was like a super-sedan that had come from the 1930s. In fact, the authors of the project repeatedly stated to various media outlets that the Autobahnkurier 116i took inspiration from the Bugatti Royale and the Mercedes Benz 540K Autobahn Kurier. The basis and skeleton of the car was the Mercedes-Benz S class – or more precisely the W126.

The AK 116i is powered by two Mercedes V8-engines, each coming from a W126-500SE. One engine gives the power to the rear-axle, the other one to the front-axle, so the car has 4WD. The gearbox for the front looks similar to the compressor, that original Autobahnkurier cars normally had. The two engines created a 10-litre, 600 bhp powerhouse tandem that could generate 900 Nm of torque. Ironically, the designer capped the speed at 242 km/h. According to the author of the Isdera Autobahnkurier 116i, the top speed was limited due to the excessive appetite of the engines when driving over 250 km/h.

It is said that the doors are modified Beetle-doors, the rear-windows look like they are coming from the same base.

commendatore gt

The Isdera Commendatore GT is a 2+2-seater sports car produced by the German car manufacturer Isdera. It was introduced at the Auto China in 2018. It is intended to address above all the Chinese sports car market. It is equipped with two electric motors each with 300 kW (402 hp) for a total of 600 kW (805 hp), as well as 1,060 N⋅m of torque and a top speed of 302 km/h. So far only two pieces have been built. It also has gull-wing doors. With the 105 kWh battery pack in the floor panels the car is not only able to reach up to 500 kilometers with one charge. It is able to accelerate from zero to 100 mph in 3.7  seconds as well as reaching a topspeed  of 302 km/h but which will be electronically limited to save tires and range.

Within this year Isdera plans to build two cars while there is no information so far if it will go into low-volume production in 2019 or not.

Sbarro is a small Swiss high-performance replica and sports car company founded by Franco Sbarro in 1971.

imperator sbarro s20e

One-off made by Sbarro to celebrate the 20th anniversarry of the French TV magazine Turbo. Sbarro used a 1991 Isdera Imperator 108i as a donor car, including it's Mercedes V8. This unique car is the brainchild of notorious designer and engineer Franco Sbarro, noted for his futuristic concept cars and motorbikes.