Rare Rides: The Eccentric Isdera Spyder 036i, From 1991
The name Isdera meant absolutely nothing to your author prior to today’s Rare Ride. A company originally headquartered in West Germany, it seems Isdera’s offerings were intentionally obscure and hard to purchase.
Let’s check out an 036i, whatever that means.
Isdera is an anagram of the German words “Engineering Company for Styling.” It was originally founded in 1982 by one Eberhard Schulz, who was formerly an engineer at Mercedes-Benz. Schulz envisioned his company as a specialty automaker of hand-built quality, with an exclusive customer base. The cars were not advertised to the general public, and customers had to reach out to Schulz directly to order their bespoke sports car.
The company’s first car was the Spyder 033, which debuted in 1982. Isdera followed up with the Imperator 108i in 1984, the Spider 033-16 in 1985, and today’s Rare Ride the Spyder 036i in 1987. There was also a later model in the Nineties, the 1993 Commendatore 112i. Isdera revealed all its cars at the respective Geneva Motor Show each time.
The Imperator in particular was an idea Schulz created to bring a car similar in design and scope to the Mercedes CW311 study. Mercedes had no intention of building the car, but Schulz thought its concept was too good to pass up. After he received approval from Mercedes to build his own version, Isdera introduced the Imperator, a coupe with gullwing doors. Shortly thereafter, the Imeperator was reworked into the open-top Spyder.
While the Imperator used a Mercedes V8 engine, the lighter Spyder employed a 3.0-liter inline-six from the E-Class. Constructed from fiberglass, the frame underneath was tubular steel. There was no roof available, which meant 036i buyers needed garage in which to store their Isdera. With no roof, the gullwing doors were swapped for front-hinged scissor doors. The engine was in the middle where you’d expect, and the only transmission on offer was a five-speed manual – probably from the E-Class as well. Beyond that, each 036i was built to its customer’s specification, and so no two were exactly alike.
The Spyder 036i was built from roughly 1987 through 1993, at which point the Commendatore ushered in a new style of Isdera performance cars. A total of 17 Spyders were produced during that time. Isdera is still in business, and has sold approximately 70 vehicles since 1993. Their most recent news was in 2006 when the Autobahnkurier AK116i was introduced. An almost Neoclassical 1930s-style coupe, it used two V8 engines from the W126 S-Class, for V16 rapid motoring.
Today’s Rare Ride is painted Riviera Blau, and is for sale in Germany. Yours for $182,000.
[Image: Isdera]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
More by Corey Lewis
Comments
Join the conversation
Isdera's web site looks almost fake. Nearly everything that should be a clickable link, isn't.
Now it looks like aliens car :)