So tonight while researching old driving games for that big poster, us Jalops were looking at some of the box/cabinet art for the famous game Spy Hunter. Specifically, we were looking at the car, which I always assumed was just made up for the game. But something clicked for Raph.
Here’s what Raph said, over the old, salvaged Minitel system we use for inter-Jalop communications:
Holy crap, I never bothered to wonder what the Spy Hunter car was but... ISDERA?
Now, Isdera (a German acronym for Ingenieurbüro für Styling, DEsign und Racing) isn’t the most well-known supercar company, but they did do some dramatic stuff. Like the Imperator 108i, which appears to be the car used on the Spy Hunter artwork.
The Imperator was based on a concept car built for Mercedes-Benz, the CW311. It used a 5L Mercedes-Benz V8 which was potent enough to give it a top speed of 176 MPH. It also had a funky rear-view periscope thing, which seems to have been left out of the Spy Hunter car.
Alas, it doesn’t seem like Raph was really the first to make the Spy Hunter-Isdera connection, but I still feel its important to keep you, dear reader, updated on this breaking 30 year old news.