If you’re heading to Monterey Car Week later this summer, and have deep pockets, you’ll have the opportunity to bring all your Gran Turismo 2 fantasies to life with an extraordinary collection of cars from the short-lived Vector brand coming up for auction through RM Sotheby’s.
The eight-car line-up is part of the Monterey 2024 auction, each due to cross the block individually on Friday August 16 under the name “The Turbollection“. Remarkably this includes four examples of Vector models, two of which are fully functional prototypes.
Considering that across Vector’s entire, chaotic lifetime — from the first prototype in 1972 to the final attempt to save the brand in 1999 — it produced fewer than 40 vehicles, this represents more than 10% of the cars ever made by the niche, ultra-high performance manufacturer behind arguably the USA’s first supercar.
Originally founded by Gerald Wiegert, the company blended automotive and aviation technology to create cars that were — on-paper at least — capable of 230mph+ speeds. However it took almost 20 years before it built its first full production car, the W8.
Only a decade later, after a hostile takeover from key investor MegaTech (which also bought Lamborghini), the company folded, but thankfully not in time to prevent a highly memorable appearance in Gran Turismo 2.
Naturally, our favorite car in the Turbollection auction is the Vector W8, and not just because it’s fabulously purple. This is one of just 17 examples of the production W8 ever made, which was the closest to Wiegert’s original design.
Like all of Wiegert’s Vectors, the car’s name bears a “W” to represent the founder himself. As far as we’re aware, it’s never been made entirely clear why Vector skipped from the W2 prototype car — which endured 100,000 miles of testing over 15 years — to the W8 name of the production model, with both cars using a twin-turbo V8 based on a small-block Chevrolet.
For the W8 this was a Rodeck-developed six-liter unit, sitting in the middle of the car and transversely mounted. While it’s been stated that this was capable of 1,200hp, it’s running at the official 600hp in this car, #009.
The only car finished in purple, this W8 has only covered just over 2,600 miles and had a thorough mechanical refresh in 2023 by David Kostka — Vector’s chief of engineering at the time. RM Sotheby’s gives an estimate of $800,000 to $1m for the car.
The Vector M12 sits at the opposite end of Vector’s fortunes, with the company taken over by MegaTech (hence the “M”). Curvier than the original cars, the M12’s look was developed from a Wiegert-designed concept called the WX-3 — which we’ll cover in a minute.
With MegaTech now owning both Vector and Lamborghini, the M12 switched its powerplant to a 5.7-liter V12 Lamborghini engine, shared with the Diablo. In fact quite a lot of the car was shared with the Diablo, including the chassis underneath, and it made it a pretty tough sell when you could just buy an actual Diablo — and contemporary reviews were not kind on the M12.
Vector’s fall came about when MegaTech offloaded Lamborghini to the Volkswagen Group. Now liable for the costs of engine supply for that V12 unit, MegaTech couldn’t pay Vector’s bills (but sent a W8 to Lamborghini in lieu) and with just 14 road cars produced the company folded.
This makes the M12 the rarer of the two production Vectors, but the stigma and reputation gives it a lower estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. Still, car #5 is also a beautiful purple color and has just 6,000 miles on the clock as well as a recent service and inspection at the European Exotic Center near its original home in Tampa, Florida.
Also available in the auction are both of the WX-3 prototypes made by Wiegert’s Vector in 1993, shortly before the hostile takeover.
That includes the only convertible Vector ever made, the WX-3R (also in purple). Wiegert showed off both cars at the Geneva Motor Show in 1993, returning home to find his company had been bought out from underneath him and kick-starting a legal dispute which (despite his death in 2021) has only recently been resolved.
While that took the shine off the WX-3, which never made it into production as Wiegert successfully litigated to keep ownership of the designs and vehicles, the two cars previewed what the saga robbed us of. In both cases the WX-3 was to use a custom, all-aluminum, seven-liter, twin-turbocharged V8 good for up to 1,200hp, although only the coupe currently employs this unit — rated at 1,000hp in the listing.
Remarkably the coupe also features a three-abreast seating layout, with a lap belt for the center occupant. One fun note on the roadster is that, despite barely turning a wheel in 25 years, it shows some 89,000 on the odometer. According to Kostka (as quoted by RM Sotheby’s) this was a ploy by Wiegert to show the car’s reliability — and the only example of forward-clocking we’ve ever heard of.
Both cars have been refreshed recently, with the owner of both (since 2019) spending a combined $420,000 with Miller Motorcars of Greenwich, Connecticut. The estimates for both are $1.3m to $1.5m, although we’d expect the convertible to finish the higher of the two.
If that all wasn’t quite enough, the Turbollection also includes one of just nine Cizeta V16Ts and one of the three ordered by the Sultan of Brunei.
Originally known as the Cizeta-Moroder V16T, due to an unlikely collaboration between its creator Claudio Zampolli (with his initials, in Italian, comprising the first part of the name) and legendary composer Giorgio Moroder, the latter part of the name only applied to the prototype car after a disagreement between the two.
Designed by Marcello Gandini from an earlier concept for the Lamborghini Diablo, the Cizeta V16T sports a transversely-mounted, V16 engine. This is technically two V8s sharing a single crankshaft, either side of the gearbox, in a single, giant casting and it accounts for the Cizeta’s absolutely absurd 81-inch width.
Restored to full working order after being more-or-less immobile for 25 years, the Cizeta is listed at an estimate of $700,000-$900,000.
The Turbollection also includes a rare Bugatti EB110S, an even rarer pre-production Porsche 959 Vorserie, and one of only 13 Isdera Imperator 108i Series 2 models ever made.
You’ll be able to bid on the cars during the auction on Friday August 16, with more than 200 lots in total crossing the block during the three days from August 15 to August 17.
All images via RM Sotheby’s Monterey 2024 auction.
See more articles on Gran Turismo 2 and Vector.
