Rare Rides: The 1977 Bitter CD - Elder Bitter

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

Rare Rides featured its first Bitter last year, when a golden SC coupe from 1984 graced these pages. In that article we mentioned we’d return when the company’s first model, the CD, turned up for sale somewhere.

And today’s the day! Let’s take a look at Bitter’s initial product offering.

Bitter’s founder Erich Bitter made his career out of cars. What started out as racing cars turned into a tuning business. That grew into full-on importation of new cars, and then to design projects with Italian firm Intermeccanica. Once its Italian dealings wrapped up, Bitter formed a new company after some persuasion by friends at Opel.

Before Bitter GmbH’s founding, the company’s eventual first car was previewed on the Opel stand at the Frankfurt Motor Show of 1969. The prototype Opel Coupe Diplomat, or CD if you’re feeling casual, was designed by Chuck Jordan (head of Opel’s design) and Dick Ruzzin. The public’s reaction to the prototype lead to further discussion at Opel about a production version. Over in the U.S., Bob Lutz was in charge of Opel and called up Pietro Frua to work the concept into a road-going car.

But Opel’s project stalled out. Dave Holls, who was one of the assistants on the original CD prototype, had advanced to run Opel’s design that year. Still very interested in the car, Holls reached out to Bitter in 1971 to urge him to take over the CD’s future. Bitter didn’t waste time, forming his new company that year.

Bitter took Frua’s design and altered it a bit before setting the production car’s final look. Final prototypes went to Opel, where Holls and other Opel employees refined its appearance even further. Once the design was settled, Bitter contracted out production to Baur, as he lacked the funds to set up his own factory. The final product appeared in public for the first time at the 1973 Frankfurt Motor Show — where the public showed a decent amount of interest. Orders placed at the show totaled 176, but most were quickly cancelled after the oil crisis broke out later that year.

Production started up anyway, but the model’s assembly was as slow as the orders; only six were completed the first year. For the next six years, roughly 70 CDs rolled out annually, delivered to wealthy customers who wanted a very exotic looking Opel coupe. 1979 was the CD’s final year of production, with just 37 completed. Not disheartened, Bitter moved on to offer the SC coupe that same year.

Underneath the long coupe body, all CDs rode on a platform borrowed from the Opel Diplomat large sedan. The CD used the Diplomat’s upscale engine option: a 5.4-liter Chevrolet V8. In this case, the V8 was paired to a three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic, which sent 230 horsepower to the rear wheels.

Today’s car is in excellent condition, and is for sale in Germany for $77,000.

[Images: seller]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

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.

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  • Flipper35 Flipper35 on Mar 17, 2020

    I wonder how much that rear glass weighs?

  • Gimmeamanual Gimmeamanual on Mar 17, 2020

    Saw a purple/blue of these back in August in front of Little Daddy's restaurant in Bloomfield. Had different wheels, quad driving lights, different taillights, and the rear panel was blacked out. Had never seen one before. Pretty car, interesting story.

  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
  • EBFlex The best gift would have been a huge bonfire of all the fak mustangs in inventory and shutting down the factory that makes them.Heck, nobody would even have to risk life and limb starting the fire, just park em close together and wait for the super environmentally friendly EV fire to commence.
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