The next entry in the “Unknown Supercars” series is a rather exotic one — say hello to the Lotec Sirius. If you are still a teenager, you probably haven’t heard of this supercar before. And those who do probably aren’t aware of the full story anyway. Luckily, this piece will tell you everything there is to know about the Sirius and its inspiring but complicated background.
So hang tight and enjoy!
Backstory
Lotec’s story starts in 1962, with Kurt Lotterschmid opening a repair shop in Germany. Back then, Lotec was a small-scale car repair shop specialized in Mercedes vehicles. Driven by a never-settle attitude and after experiencing scant profits in the automobile repair business, the Lotec brand entered the world of motorsport racing in 1965.
It was quite common for German mechanics of the era to slowly transition into racing. Similarly, Kurt Lotterschmid started building his car to compete in the German Formula 5 championship. Kurt would go on to be very successful with his creation, winning six titles.
Racing era
Meanwhile, the repair shop was not doing as well as Kurt would have liked. After a while, trying to find a solution, he realized there was a lot more money to be made in the car modification business. So in 1975, Lotec began to offer an entire range of fiberglass body panels for the Porsche 911. The company made front and rear bumpers, engine covers, extended fenders, etc., making the brand one of the few original German tuning houses. In 1975, the company’s successful racing division was competing in domestic events within the country using a Porsche 912 racecar.
Then came 1980, when Lotterschmid decided to compete in the Interseries Championship, and the Lotec M681 was born. The M681 featured an aluminum alloy tubular frame structure with a fiberglass body; the result was a 625-kg open-top racecar.
Powering the racecar was a BMW M88 in-line six-cylinder engine that produced 420 horsepower. Thanks to its low weight, the M681 could reach speeds of up to 280km/hr. The M681 participated in the fourth race of the 1981 season at the Nurburgring, where it bagged a podium finish. However, the car did not perform as well in the following races, and in fact, its performance was so bad that Kurt refused to participate in the final race.
But the man did not give up. Kurt got back in his workshop and came up with another racecar based on the M681 chassis. He called it the M1C. The M1C was a closed-top racing car built to compete in the 1982 Group C racing series. Sadly though, this racecar was not successful either.
Tuning era
After bottoming out in motorsport, Kurt began to focus more and more on the business’ street-legal tuning side. Lotterschmid had noticed the upcoming wave of aftermarket tuners and the opportunities that came along with it. So naturally, he did not want to miss out. By the mid-1980s, Lotec began to explore new opportunities in the tuning world. Indeed, it first started by installing Garrett turbochargers on luxury sedans.
Thanks to his Japanese contacts, Kurt was commissioned by a private individual to build him one such car called the Lotec Ambassadeur. The Ambassadeur started life as a Mercedes 560 SEL but had scarce similarities to it once Kurt had done its thing.
The 5.6-liter V8 was fitted with two Garrett turbochargers and an intercooler. Now keep in mind that we are talking about the 1980s, where turbocharging a vehicle was a relatively unpopular choice. At the time, most tuners would increase engine displacement to extract more power instead. As a result, the Ambassadeur churned out 560 horsepower and a mammoth 700 Nm of torque. The 4-speed automatic gearbox had to be beefed up to handle the power bump.
Worth mentioning, the interior was also given a complete overhaul; the Ambasaddeur had a telephone, fax machine, and a television with a VCR.
The car was delivered to its owner in Japan in 1985, but its present condition remains unknown.
Birth of the Sirius
The Ambassadeur project improved Lotec’s reputation in the industry and established it as a tuner capable of meeting even the most bonkers requests. To double down on this image of the company, Lotec ran an advertisement that can be loosely translated as “As long as you have an idea, we can take orders.” And that did the trick.
Another private individual, this time a sheik from the United Arab Emirates, got in touch with Lotec and asked the company to build him a car that would fulfill his dream of owning the fastest car in the world. Lotec accepted the challenge and, a year or so later, came up with the C1000. The C1000 was equipped with a heavily reworked version of the same Mercedes V8 used in the Ambassadeur. Moreover, it made extensive use of exotic materials like Kevlar and carbon fiber. The result was a 1000-horsepower monster that sold for $ 3.4 million. Even though the car’s theoretical speed was well over 400 km/h, there were no tires available at the time that could handle such high speed.
After customizing a few other cars, Kurt wanted to make one all by himself, transforming Lotec into a supercar manufacturer. That is when, in 1992, he started working on the Lotec Sirius.
Styling Features
Some people think of the Sirius’ design as ugly or displeasing, but I think the Lotec Sirius embodies the textbook definition of “old-school cool.” Its aggressive styling rightly reflects the enormous amount of power that it packs under the hood.
Unlike every other modern supercar, the Lotec Sirius does not have large glaring air intakes that could swallow a medium-sized child when given the opportunity. Instead, it has a decent opening in the lower part of the front bumper flanked by air ducts on either side. The hood of the car also features an opening for a fan that sucks air in. Air for cooling the engine comes in through the side ducts mounted just behind the doors; they also contribute to giving the car an aggressive side profile.
The A-pillar on the Sirius is made of black pylons that blend in with the windshield and window glass. However, the C-pillar and the car’s roof are painted silver, which gives the roof a nice floating effect when viewed from the top. Moreover, the front fascia of the supercar appears to have no panel lines. That is because the hood, fenders, and front bumper are a single unit. While such complex shapes give the Sirius its trademark look, it can dramatically increase the manufacturing cost.
Just like the C1000, the Sirius also made use of several exotic materials that were usually used in aircraft construction. The frame is made from carbon fiber-reinforced plastic and alloyed steel tubes, and the car’s body is made of carbon composites. Extensive use of such lightweight materials helped to achieve a dry weight of around 1280 kg.
Under the Skin
The Sirius packs quite a punch. It is fitted with a Mercedes M120 V12 engine, but the engine would not be complete without a touch of Lotec madness. So Kurt strapped two massive KKK turbochargers and two intercoolers. The result? 1,200 horsepower and 1,320 Nm at 1.2 bar of boost, making the Sirius accelerate to 100 kph in 3.5 seconds.
All that power is sent exclusively to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. The Sirius had a claimed top speed of 400 km/hr, and if anything went wrong at that speed, the driver had no other safety features other than ABS.
For the Mercedes engine to handle such high numbers, Lotec had to make several other modifications as well. Stronger pistons, crankshafts, and connecting rods had to be specially forged, and a dry-sump lubrication system was also added.
The brand had considered fitting a 3.6-liter 6-cylinder turbocharged Porsche engine to the Sirius. Still, the idea was later scrapped as Lotterschmid wanted his first supercar to have more power than the boxer engine could produce.
Beautiful scissor doors reveal the simple yet functional interior of the Sirius. The car features wide carbon fiber door sills that make way for leather-clad racing bucket seats with three-point racing harnesses, making up for a rather snug cockpit. The instrument panels, including all gauges, have been borrowed from a Porsche 944.
What happened to it?
Lotec finished the car in 2000, and the prototype was revealed at the 2001 Geneva International Motor Show with a price tag of 700,000 €. Kurt Lotterschmid planned to manufacture the supercar, and he expected somewhere between 20 and 50 orders for it. Sadly, due to the lack of a proper manufacturing facility and financial issues, Kurt’s dream of selling his in-house supercar never materialized.
Kurt did not give up then either; he even offered to build the car for a handful of interested customers from the UAE if they agreed to wait 12 months for their car and pay half of the asking price in advance. However, none of the attempts were successful. The initial prototype was the only car that was ever built.
That being said, Kurt was still hopeful. In 2014, he tried again to redesign the Sirius and to update the styling to modern standards. Unfortunately, the Sirius 2 also failed to gather enough momentum. These days the Lotec brand is selling aftermarket rims for prominent German cars.
Last Words
So that was all there is to know about the elusive Lotec Sirius. Or, at least, what I know about it. It was a highly capable car produced by a visionary individual that failed simply due to a lack of funding. Had someone with deep-enough pockets seen the Sirius or the entire Lotec brand’s true potential, we wonder how differently things could have turned out for Kurt Lotterschmid. But alas! All we can do now is trust that everything happens for a reason and move on.
Still an outstanding piece, right?
