1980s Project Car – A Rare BMW 635CSi Koenig – $21,000 to $27,800 USD

As far as ’80s project cars go, they don’t get much more eclectic than this – it’s a 1986 BMW 635CSi with an original bodykit from Koenig that gives the car significantly more presence on the road, not to mention a wider track width for those BBS basketweave wheels.

Willy König And His Koenig Specials

Koenig Specials GmbH was founded by eccentric millionaire and successful racing driver Willy König (sometimes spelt “Willy Koenig”) 1977 to formally sell kits and parts that Koenig had been developing and selling since 1974.

The cars built by Willy and his team were extreme to say the least, so extreme that former friend Enzo Ferrari demanded that any car modified by Koenig have its Ferrari badges removed or face legal action – as the company no longer considered it to be a Ferrari.

Love them or hate them, Willy and his team at Koenig had a significant influence on the global car tuning and modification scene. The company sold wide body kits, suspension systems, performance engine parts and they offered a fully-built cars.

Above Image: The unmistakable side profile and significantly wider rear wheels are a good indication that this is no ordinary 635CSi.

One of the company’s most famous creations was an extensively modified Ferrari Testarossa with an avant garde body kit and a significantly modified twin-turbo engine capable of 1,000 bhp. A slew of wild cars rolled out of the Koenig facilities during the 1970s and 1980s, today they’re considered quite collectible but only to a specific kind of collector – one who cars more for the car’s unusual nature than their lost originality.

Interestingly, Koenig Specials GmbH is still in operation to this day selling body kits for cars from its glory days, though they no longer build custom cars in-house.

The BMW Koenig 635CSi Shown Here

The unusual coupe you see here is a BMW Koenig 635CSi, there are no surviving records for how many of these were built and Willy König was famously terrible at keeping accurate records, but we do know the car is rare and likely one of just two in the United Kingdom.

This particular car is a bit of a mystery as it’s coming up for sale on the instruction of a high court ruling. We do know it’s wearing a Koenig 635 bodykit with matching wider BBS (or BBS-like) wheels but we don’t know what suspension, braking, engine, or other performance modifications have been made to the car if any.

Above Image: The interior remains unchanged, even the original BMW onboard computer is still in place.

The car is currently fitted with a SOHC 3.5 litre M30 engine mated to a 4 speed automatic gearbox, this engine famously responds well to tuning but for truly sporting driving it would likely need a gearbox transplant at some point.

It’s not known why the car is wearing M badging as it’s not an M car, though there is a small minority of car owners who like to give their cars badge-upgrades at the chagrin of everyone else in the car community. The new owner would likely want to remove these badges and correct them as an early item on the to do list.

The car has spent several years as part of a museum display so out will need a recommissioning before it’s put back on the road, though it looks from the outside like it would be a fairly straightforward task.

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing. It’s due to roll across the auction block on the 20th of March at the Bonhams MPH March Auction with an estimated hammer price of £15,000 to £20,000.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

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The Car With A Hand-Formed Copper Body – 1965 Shelby 427 S/C Cobra “CSX 4602”

It’s not everyday we get a chance to write about a car with a body made from hand-formed copper sheet metal. In fact in the 11 year history of Silodrome this is the first.

If you’re asking yourself if that’s just copper plating, it’s not. It’s a 100% copper body made up of 17 individual panels that have been shaped using traditional tools and then assembled together so well that you can’t see any of the body seams – an astonishing feat of workmanship.

Anyone who’s ever tried shaping a piece of aluminum alloy using english wheels or other traditional tools will tell you it’s not easy to get right. Getting it so right that the left/right panels on a car are identical is borderline magic, and doing it all with copper is voodoo.

Many modern auto manufacturers in recent years have begun capitalizing on the the classic car market and their own back catalogues by building brand new versions of cars that long ago left the production line. Today we consider it essentially normal, and these cars take pride of place at shows alongside their decades-old siblings.

A Texas chicken farmer named Carroll Shelby was one of the first to create official reissues of his own cars. Replica car builders had been doing is successfully for decades, and always an astute businessman, Shelby realized he could be doing the same but actually make the cars official continuation vehicles.

Above Image: Each of the 17 polished copper body panels was shaped by hand.

The first series of these official continuation Shelby Cobras are known as the “CSX4000” series due to their chassis numbers which are all formatted “CSX4***” starting with CSX4001. Carroll Shelby was heavily involved in overseeing this project, the cars were built in Las Vegas with chassis initially built by McCluskey Ltd.

The first of the CSX4000 series were the 427 S/C models which could be ordered with either fiberglass or aluminum bodies. Special orders could be placed for either bronze or copper bodies if the buyer so wished, though this increased the cost and complexity significantly.

When developing the CSX4000 series the spirit of the original cars was kept alive, but they were upgraded under the skin to take advantage of decades of advancement in automotive engineering.

The car you see here is chassis number CSX4602, and it’s best known for its elegant polished copper bodywork. The car isn’t all show and no go however, it’s powered by a 550 hp, 468 cu. in. carbureted “427 FE” V8 from the Carroll Shelby Engine Company.

Above Image: The 427 FE V8 produces 550 hp and the car weighs in at just 2,400 lbs.

This engine is American V8 royalty, starting with a 427 FE V8 the team at the Carroll Shelby Engine Company fitted it with a stroker crankshaft, custom Mahle alloy power pack pistons, a custom-ground hydraulic roller cam, Shelby aluminum heads, and a Shelby aluminum intake topped by a Holley Hardcore 850HP Double Pumper carburetor.

It produces the aforementioned 550 hp as well as 580 lb ft of torque, power is sent to the rear wheels via a 5-speed manual transmission. The car tips the scales at just 2,400 lbs or 1,088 kgs, giving it a power-to-weight ratio in the same range as that giant meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs.

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on RM Sotheby’s. It’s being offered as a private sale with an asking price of $475,000 USD.

Images: ©2021 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

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An LS-Swapped Rear Wheel Drive VW Rabbit Pickup – Now With 366 RWHP

This is the only LS-swapped rear wheel drive VW Rabbit Pickup we’ve ever seen, and it might very well be the only one in the world. What we do know for sure is that it’s definitely the only one in the world for sale right now.

Fans of the VW Rabbit, known as the VW Golf in much of the rest of the world, as an unusual group of people at the best of times. They’re among the most dedicated car people you’ll meet and you’ll find active communities of them in almost every country in the world.

When it left the factory this Rabbit pickup, known as a “Caddy”, was powered by an economical 1.7 litre four-cylinder engine, making it ideal for tradespeople who needed to carry tools and equipment without the expense of running a full-sized pickup truck.

Unlike the regular front wheel drive Rabbit with its relatively small engine and punchy handling, the car you see here has been comprehensively rebuilt into a rear wheel drive behemoth with over 366 rwhp. Yes you read that right. This car that weighs exactly as much as a shopping cart half full of empty aluminum cans has 366 rear wheel horsepower. It also has 351 lb ft of torque.

Above Image: The exterior of the car has been kept as unassuming as possible, with the exception of the wheels of course.

The project to rebuild this Rabbit took over two years, no one is entirely sure how much it cost but whatever the final bill was, it included a 6.0 litre “LS” LQ4 from a 2001 Chevrolet 2500 Silverado with upgrades to take it from 300 hp and 360 lb ft of torque to where it is today.

This engine was bolted to a GM 4l80e transmission, which sends power back to a narrowed Ford Explorer 8.8 rear end which has been drilled to 4×100.

Of course, putting all that power through a Rabbit unibody called for some additional strengthening, so longitudinal twist was controlled via “Caltrac” bars mounted at the rear, a custom cage made of 1.5 DOM tubing, and plates that extend forward to the strut towers.

As you would expect, brakes have been upgraded to better handle the new power output, the front end now sports VW Golf MK3 calipers and rotors with green stuff pads with an Audi large bore master cylinder and Wilwood prop valve higher up the hydraulics chain. In the rear the original Ford Explorer drums were deemed more than capable given the low weight over the rear axle.

Above Image: The pickup bed remains 100% usable, in fact loading it up would likely help with traction.

During the build the exterior/body of the Rabbit was deliberately left a little scruffy giving it an almost sleeper-like appeal.

Of course the burble from that V8 and the sight of the car sitting low on those Jongbloed racing wheels will give more than enough indication as to the hidden performance ability of the car.

The car is selling out of Modesto, California through the new Radwood auction website, it’s called “RAD For Sale” and it was developed to sell Radwood suitable vehicles to fans of the rapidly growing global community.

If you’d like to read more about this Rabbit or place a bit you can click here to visit the listing. At the time of writing there are still 4 days left to bid, and the bidding currently sits at $8,000 USD.

Images courtesy of RAD For Sale

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The Spyder Donington Coupe – A Rare V8 Lotus Eclat

This is a Spyder Donington coupe, it’s a rare car that uses the body of a Lotus Eclat paired with an all-new chassis built by the team at Spydersport Ltd. This new backbone chassis was designed to pair perfectly with the Eclat, but to also accommodate a Rover V8 under the hood.

The Lotus Eclat

The Lotus Eclat was originally fitted with a signature Lotus backbone chassis, made from folded and welded steel. This chassis accommodates the engine, transmission, suspension, and the body. This basic structure was used on all Lotus road cars of the era, the lightweight fiberglass body helped keep the weight down and the steel backbone chassis helped with rigidity.

This basic formula was used on famous Lotus cars like the Elite, the Europa, and the Esprit, and it also formed the underpinnings of the DeLorean DMC-12, which was engineered by Colin Chapman and the team at Lotus.

The Eclat was developed on the second generation Lotus Elite platform, in fact both cars shared a chassis and the lower half of their fiberglass body work was essentially identical. The Elite was release first, in 1975, and the Eclat followed a year later in 1975, with both cars remaining in production until 1982.

Above Image: The interior of the car is exactly as retro-70s as you’d want it to be.

Lotus developed the Eclat to offer more trunk space (at the expensive of rear seat space) to better cater for people who wanted to use the car as a proper cross-Continental GT. It also came in handy for people getting their groceries but this sounds far less exotic.

Lotus engineers designed the chassis for the Elite/Eclat to take the 2.0 litre Lotus 907 inline-four cylinder engine with its DOHC head containing four valves per cylinder. This all-alloy engine was also used in the Jensen-Healey and the Lotus Esprit, it offered good power for its size with 144 bhp in standard trim.

Later versions of the Eclat would get the 2.2 litre Lotus 912 engine that offered 160 bhp and 160 lb ft of torque.

The Spyder Donington

Due to the size of the Lotus 907 engine the backbone chassis couldn’t accommodate the Rover V8 without serious reconstructive surgery. The team at Spydersport Ltd realized that the Eclat would be well-suited to the Rover V8 but that the only way to get one into it was with a newly designed chassis with a wider gap between the front chassis rails.

They used the same basic shape as the Lotus chassis apart from front section, and they applied rust and corrosion inhibiting to protect it. Once fitted with suspension, wheels, an engine, transmission, and differential could then have an Eclat body lowered onto it and voilà – you had yourself a V8 Eclat.

The concept of coachbuilding was established at approximately the same time that the automobile was invented, automakers would build a powered rolling chassis and sell it to clients who would then pay a coachbuilding firm to make them a body. What the team at Spydersport did was invert this process – you bring them your body and they’d provide you with the chassis to go under it.

Above Image: The 2+2 seating and trunk space make it a reasonably practical Continental GT car.

When ordering your Spyder Donington you could specify that it had power steering, air conditioning, and performance modifications like a Jaguar XJ limited-slip differential with inboard disc brakes.

It’s not known how many of these were built, when asked about it staff at Spydersport said they think a handful have survived, so the car you see here is reasonably rare. Interestingly, engineers at Lotus also developed a Rover V8 version of the Eclat but it was nixed by Chapman who only wanted to use Lotus engines.

The Spyder Donington Shown Here

The Spyder Donington you see here is one of the few originals made, it was built in 1990 and used in the Spydersport publicity material.

It’s fitted with a Rover V8 as you would expect, sourced from a Rover SD1, it has a 5-speed Rover transmission, and a Jaguar limited-slip differential. The car has been kept in storage since 2000 and so it would now need a full recommissioning before any driving is attempted.

There’s no doubt that Donington will be quick once returned to the road, the previous owner I. P. Morrison was quoted as saying “This Lotus V8 is too fast for me. Please buy it before (a) I kill myself or worse still (b) I lose my licence!”

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing, it’s due to cross the auction block on the 20th of March with a hammer estimate of £12,000 to £16,000.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

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