[masraum]

Originally Posted by kach22i

The Isdera Imperator 108i was an interesting inclusion.

Cool and weird.

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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 CW311 concept car from 1978, which Eberhard Schulz, who worked as a design engineer for Porsche, designed in his free time. Mercedes had no interest in putting the CW311 into production, so Schulz established his own 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. 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 5.0 L (5,000 cc) Mercedes-Benz M117 V8 engine which gave the vehicle a top speed of 283 km/h (176 mph) and a 0–97 km/h (0–60 mph) 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 (5,600 cc) Mercedes-Benz M117 V8, a 5.6 L (5,600 cc) AMG V8 and a 6.0 L (6,000 cc) AMG V8 which saw an eventual increase of power from 300 hp (304 PS; 224 kW) to 390 hp (395 PS; 291 kW), 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, a first for a production street legal car since their first application on the Mercedes-Benz 300SL.

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

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