carstr on Nostr: The Isdera Commendatore 112i, unveiled in 1993 by engineer Eberhard Schulz, was ...

The Isdera Commendatore 112i, unveiled in 1993 by engineer Eberhard Schulz, was conceived as a one-off supercar masterpiece. Beneath its distinctive gullwing engine cover sat a Mercedes-Benz M120 6.0-liter V12, tuned to 400 horsepower and paired with a Getrag gearbox modified by RUF to include a sixth gear—enabling a top speed of over 220 mph. A lightweight GRP body mounted on a tubular steel chassis kept weight low, while a reworked Porsche 928 suspension system incorporated speed-sensitive lowering, dropping the car three inches at high speeds to reduce drag.

Schulz’s ingenuity was evident in the details: Porsche 968 headlights, a single bullet-train wiper sweeping the massive windscreen, a roof-mounted periscope mirror for rear visibility, and BBS racing wheels on all four corners. His ambition was to homologate the car for Le Mans, but the early-1990s Japanese economic crash ended the project’s funding, pushing Isdera into bankruptcy. A Swiss consortium later stepped in to finish and road-register the prototype, which went on to achieve cult status after its appearance in Need for Speed II on the PlayStation.