Melkus RS2000 Takes Shape

DRESDEN, Germany — Melkus, one of the best-known racing-car builders on the "other" side of the Iron Curtain in the pre-reunification days, is at work on a 21st-century sport coupe. The RS2000 is said to be at the scale model stage, with a prototype planned for 2009.

Heinz Melkus, the family patriarch, mostly focused his activities on single-seat racing cars, but between 1969 and 1980 he built around 100 copies of a sleek sport coupe with gullwing doors called the RS1000. The car was built off the somewhat unlikely base of the Wartburg of East Bloc fame. Heinz passed away in 2005, although his family is still actively racing, though now with Lotus Elises.

The Melkus team announced recently that it will build a modern-day version of the original RS1000 coupe as well as the new RS2000. The first drawings and a scale model of the RS2000 have been completed. German media report that the car will weigh somewhere just north of 2,000 pounds and will carry either an Opel engine or a 150-200-horsepower Volkswagen turbo.

The estimated price will be the equivalent of $85,000. A prototype won't be completed until 2009, sources say.

© Source: edmunds
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