It looks like someone finally came to what new retro cars should look like. This is the Memminger Roadster, or the modern evolution of the Beetle cabrio. Problem? The creation of only 20 pieces. For me, please, two.
The trouble with modern cars in the retro style lies in the fact that manufacturers have to use the chassis they already have and the only thing they focus on is clumping a few or a dozen stylistic accents referring to the classics. Not the way. This leads to the creation of such brands as the Beetle with the Golf-powered front drive. If I want a retro-style car, I would like its "retro" not to end on the frames of headlights and hubcaps. Apparently, a similar conclusion was reached by Georg Memming, who runs a company in Germany that is renovating the high-level Beetles. As if someone was surprised, I am in a hurry to explain that the Beetles have not been "funny, old cars" for some time, but have passed into a group of expensive classics. And the restoration of the Beetle can cost PLN 200,000. In Poland, moreover, we have an excellent company dealing with Volkswagen from the time of World War II. But this is a topic for a separate entry - let's go back to Memminger.
![memminger-roadster-0.jpg]
(
)
This is the concept of the Memming Roadster 2.7 concept:
He is brilliant. I can not help it. It looks like a Garbus-hot rod, but without this obciach hot-roddingowego anturażu with flames, etc. It is also somehow exaggeratedly elegant: it is a pain German, is the essence of what it was built for. This is not a roadster in my opinion, because a roadster should have a folding roof. Rather, speedster. Does not matter. Important what is important: the wheelbase has been extended, the floor plate has been widened and the engine ... moved behind the front seats. So from a technical point of view it's more Porsche Boxster than a Crooked Man. The 2.7-liter engine capacity also suggested that a Porsche Boxster unit was put here, but no. It's just the most-drilled 4-cylinder VW boxer, so-called. Type 4. It seems that it can not be increased more than to 2.7 liters, but I do not rule out that someone has succeeded. The 2.7-liter engine develops 210 hp and the whole car weighs 800 kg, which is hard to believe these days.
"There is no entertainment in the cabin, it diverts attention from driving," said Georg Memming. And he is right.
Rather, it is not a car to drive every day, so you can do without a radio, touch screen, reversing camera with a 360 view and similar things that spoil the experience of dealing with a real machine. There are brakes taken from Porsche (in the end something from Porsche!) And specially designed reinforcements behind the front seats, which serve as both anti-slip (ie not to cut off the head when tipping), and as air grips to the engine. The rear spoiler is also nicely incorporated. But I like the classic indicators in the cabin the most. Analog indicators have elegance that no screen can provide.
These were good news. Now it's time for the bad.
It is not known whether this genius car will be duplicated. And if so, a maximum of 20 copies. I doubt that there will be no demand for these 20 items. I bet that they will go faster than Messrs Memming and the son would like. And the price in excess of 100,000 euros will probably not be a barrier. However, I wonder how this car will be registered: probably as a hunchback from the '70s, because otherwise I do not think that it is possible to register something that does not even have a driver's air bag. But the driver's airbag also weighs in, so it is completely unnecessary in such a car.