Isdera Imperator 108i


The Isdera Imperator 108i is a low-volume German sports car produced from 1984 to 1993. The Imperator 108i was born out of the CW311 concept car from 1978, which Eberhard Schulz, who at the time worked as a design engineer for Porsche, designed in his free time, using Mercedes parts, mainly the V8 engines. Mercedes-Benz allowed the use of the Mercedes badge and name but 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. Isdera AG owns the trademarks to Imperator as separate brand.

Specifications and performance

Inspired by the Gullwing Mercedes 300 SL and the Mercedes-Benz C111 experimental cars, and with a drag coefficient cw of 0.311, the CW311 concept was built by the bb company of Rainer Buchmann. They used the big but heavy 6.9 litre Mercedes-Benz M100 engine and other Mercedes parts. Use of the Mercedes star was allowed by the factory due to a tricky press campaign that stole the limelight of the new BMW M1. The one-off car starred in the 1980 comedy "Car-napping".
Implementing a fiberglass body upon a tubular steel spaceframe, the Isdera Imperator 108i was comparable to the exotic sports cars of its day. Little was changed from the original Mercedes-Benz show car with the most noticeable changes being the replacement of the pop-up headlights with two fixed units and more conventional tail lights sourced from Mercedes-Benz. The original Imperator 108i featured a Mercedes-Benz M117 V8 engine which gave the vehicle a top speed of and a 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 Mercedes-Benz M117 V8, a AMG V8 and a AMG V8 which saw an eventual increase of power from to, 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.

Production

Introduction

The Imperator 108i was first unveiled to public at the Geneva International Motor Show in March 1984.

Model year changes

In 1991, the car received a face-lift which saw the return of the pop-up headlamps from the 1978 show car and a more curvaceous body shape, additional vents at the front near the doors, NACA duct on the front in place of three vents, redesigned front grille and repositioning of turning indicators from the front grille to the bottom of the headlamps along with optional wing mirrors. Around 17 cars were produced with the face lift design.

End of production

Production ended in 1993, when the Isdera company itself went out of business. Total of thirty examples produced, of which 24 were the pre-facelift models. Reportedly, two of these thirty Imperator 108i were exported to Japan.