These Are Your Favorite Automotive Urban Legends
TLDR: Mercedes-Benz killed the Chrysler ME 4-12 thought car off just in advance of it arrived at manufacturing for the reason that their executives were being pissy that straightforward American engineers could use Mercedes pieces to create a far better supercar than Mercedes them selves could.
When Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz merged at the convert of this century, the Germans desired to see what the Individuals had been built of so they gave them open entry to Mercedes’ assets and a far more-or-considerably less blank cheque to build a supercar in a really minimal window of time.
In excess of the span of fewer than a year, a workforce of just 11 individuals, who mostly comprised of the then-new SRT crew, came up with the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve: a mid engine supercar produced of aluminum and carbon fiber making use of a seriously modified Mercedes V12 with 4 turbochargers. The issue made 850 horsepower, weighed under 2900 lbs, applied a 7 pace DCT, would operate the 1/4 mile in 10.6 seconds at 136mph and experienced a major pace of 248mph. *In 2004.* At the time it would have been the fastest and most impressive production vehicle ever, eclipsed by the Veyron soon soon after.
“But, Cody,” I can hear you stating, “it was just a strategy automobile, they could make whatever promises they needed, they weren’t heading to create it!” Ah, my tiny personal strawman, that isn’t totally accurate. This is the place the urban legend component commences. See, Mercedes in fact meant for the ME 4-12 to go into production. They assumed it would be amusing to see the People battle by setting up a proper European model supercar, and weren’t expecting great items. They allegedly advised the SRT skunkworks group to have a generation ready automobile by mid 2004, it was to be symbolic of their merging and, as far as everyone on the project was conscious at the time, they had been doing the job on something that they thought would be heading into generation.
The legend is that when Chrysler shipped the ultimate, creation-completely ready prototype, it was so superior that it offended the Mercedes execs. From their standpoint, they were a master artisan supplying a toddler a set of lego blocks, leaving them by yourself for the afternoon then returning to find a excellent 1:1 recreation of Michelangelo’s David created totally of lego sitting down in their lobby. Not only was the ME 4-12 objectively far better than any car Mercedes them selves could press into production, it was extremely potentially location out to be just one of the finest supercars of all time. They didn’t want the Individuals exhibiting them up, in particular utilizing Mercedes pieces, so they finished up cancelling the job. The formal reasons specified had been far more like “it was way too expensive” but the city legend is that Mercedes killed just one of the best cars and trucks of all time even though it was continue to in the womb simply because their execs have been insecure about how fantastic it was.
This appears like the type of tale that Chrysler engineers truly want to be true, moreso than the variety of tale that is legitimate. If any one is aware where to select up that Lego Statue of David kit, however, permit me know.
Submitted by: Cody Stewart