Who designed SSK, the legend of automobile design?

This car, which was quite magnificent and elegant for the year it was produced, had a reputation for its designer: Ferdinand Porsche. SSK, which was produced between 1928 and 1932 and was highly respected around the world, also gained its reputation with its performance and racing successes.

New brands emerged from their imitations

SSK, which emerged after the 1927 “Modell S” (Sport) and “Modell K” (short-wheelbase model), was derived from the German words for “short-wheelbase super sports car”. Thanks to Porsche's excellent design, this convertible was lighter but more durable than the models it replaced. This made it an ideal race car for sprint and climbing races. With a supercharged, single camshaft 7 liter 6-cylinder engine, the SSK could generate 200-300 horsepower and could reach speeds of up to 200 km/h.

Still more, “20. SSK, which is included in the list of "Important Cars of the Century", was produced only 31 in 1928, and unfortunately, many of them were "wasted" in the races! This causes the remaining 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSKs to change hands for serious money. As a matter of fact, it is stated that one of them was sold for $ 7.4 million in 2004.

Imitation and copies

Those who wanted to have such a beautiful yet rare car but could not afford it, of course, caused the replicas of this vehicle to "explode". Because there are second-hand replicas abroad, which can be found for 10-12 thousand dollars. While some companies still continue to produce replicas of SSK, there were also those who did not settle for this and "bend and twisted" SSK and created a different tool. The most well-known among them was undoubted "Excalibur".

The firm was founded in the early 1960s by Brooks Stevens of US manufacturer Studebaker to manufacture cars based on the 1928 SSK. Stevens had founded the company to build and sell custom cars on the standard Studebaker models. The prototype of the first Excalibur was shown at trade shows in 1963. Developed on the chassis of the "Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk" model, the car had a 290 PS Studebaker V8 engine. When Studebaker stopped engine production in the same year, this time it was switched to a 300 PS Chevrolet engine. 0–100 km/h acceleration was less than 6 seconds and could accelerate to 216 km/h. The car, which has short and long versions, was produced in 3,500 units until the end of the 1980s.

Mustang wouldn't recognize it if he saw it!

After this company went bankrupt, this time the Excalibur replicas went viral. One of them comes out of Zimmer's tapes, "Formed while Excalibur was alive" (1978). Zimmer, whose name has the phrase "Neo-classical Car Company" in its entirety, produces models with the design heritage inherited from Excalibur as well as custom-modified cars. In fact, the name of this vehicle is known as “Zimmer Golden Spirit” and it has a serious reputation.

In addition to short and long versions, there are also those produced as limousines. Golden Spirit, which was produced on the Ford Mustang chassis until it went bankrupt in the late 1980s, started to be produced with Mustang and Lincoln Town Car chassis after it changed hands. They can still be bought for 175,000 dollars and they have showrooms in the Gulf countries. Of course, SSK copies will not always come out of America, there are also Japanese ones! Mitsuoka Le-Seyde... Despite being a small manufacturer, Mitsuoka, who appeared with classic-looking vehicles on mass production models and sometimes with unique models, was highly talked about in the early 1990s. The vehicle, of which 500 were produced, was developed on the "Nissan Silvia S13" chassis. This "freak" model with an extravagant design seemed to be inspired by the Zimmer Golden Spirit. Le-Seyde, which has a 4-cylinder 1.8-lt 131 HP engine without power, was equipped with a 4-speed automatic transmission. I can say that it is still one of the most "teasing" vehicles...

Besides, I won't tell you one by one, but Torrelaro SSK, which was seen even in Uruguay for a while, "Bufori", which was inspired by SSK in Malaysia, has already taken its place in automobile history as cloned or "badly copied" examples of SSK... But what did they say, "Imitations keep the original alive!", right?

Both Hitler and Stalin wanted to work with him: Who is Ferdinand Porsche?

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