An ultra racy Melkus RS2000, painted in white with red racing stripes. Amazingly, the Melkus brand was officially marketed in China, from 2010 until the company went bankrupt in 2012.
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Melkus was a German brand. The RS2000 debuted in 2009 and was manufactured until 2012, it is a very rare car with a total production estimated at max 75 examples. There was also a GT model with 325 hp and a GTS with 375 hp. Our Beijing car is the ‘base’ 270 hp model. Amazingly, Melkus’ official website is still online.
The Melkus RS2000 was based on the Lotus Elise, but the body and suspension were developed by Melkus. Power came from an Opel-sourced 2.0 turbo with a massive 270hp, good for a 0-100 in only 4.9 seconds and a 250 km/h top speed. Curb weight was only 950 kg!
Interior was dressed up as well with full leather racing seats, more leather on the dashboard, a touchscreen infotainment system, and more leather again covering the doors.
There are at least five cars in China. This white example, two orange cars, and two yellow ones. The orange cars stood unsold at a Beijing dealer for years, at least until 2016, but one day they had suddenly disappeared.
The Melkus was probably just a little bit too wild for Chinese car buyers, just like Lotus and brands like Wiesmann and Caterham. Wealthy Chinese just don’t see the concept of paying shiploads of money for a bare bones car. And how much shipload did Melkus want? One point eight million yuan!
Massive carbon wing.
Racing stripe starts at front the bumper and goes all the way to the rear bumper. A beautiful car, too bad thing didn’t work out for Melkus.