The value of an American dollar has dropped to a four-year low, dropping more than 3% in just the last few weeks, after falling more than 10% in 2025.With heretofore unimaginably toxic foreign policy, things don’t look good for people holding on to lots of U.S. currency, so you’d better spend it while the spending is good.
Why not, then, gather up every hard-earned dollarydoo you have in your savings, re-mortgage your house, and rack up some credit card debt to purchase this incredibly rare German sports car you’ve never heard of. Believed to be one of just thirteen examples, this 1991 Isdera Imperator 108i Series 2 is the perfect thing to drive when economic collapse is on the horizon. Who cares if your loan has a 20% rate if the implied value of your government’s fiat currency drops to zero. What is the bank going to do, break your kneecaps? Worst case scenario, all your debt is basically gone and you still have an Isdera to drive around.
This particular example is basically brand new with a criminally low 1,378 miles on the odometer since it was built 35 years ago and delivered to Japan. The car has been to California, where it was serviced by Canepa, and it’ll be for sale in Florida, so this vehicle has travelled significantly farther on a boat or transport truck than it ever has driven under its own power. Buy it and start racking up miles. Depreciation on your car means nothing when the dollar is dead.
Why do you want it?
Rarity aside, the Isdera Imperator 108i is a truly special machine. First of all, just look at that futuristic fighter-jet aesthetic. The exposed side-exit exhaust, NACA ducts, massive sharply raked windshield canopy, and the smooth trio of front fender vents on each side scream “remove before flight” keychain. It’s just a stunning expression of late-20th century “wedge” design, really taking Marcello Gandini’s design principles to their ultimate ends. Most of the wedgiest cars ever built were penned in Italian design houses, but the Isdera was done by German founder and former Porsche designer Eberhard Schulz.
Building a fiberglass body around a steel tubeframe, the structure of the Isdera is hardly as exotic as it looks from the outside. Take an impressive-for-the-time 300 horsepower 6-liter Mercedes-Benz V8, mount it behind the driver compartment for a mid-engine supercar look and driving style, and you’ve got an instant winner, even if it didn’t look as striking as this. Pair that with a ZF five-speed manual gearbox and tires as wide as they are tall, and you’ve got a recipe for success.
In the last decade, this car has passed through four different collections and has been treated to a number of restorative and prescriptive repairs. It’s a bit stunning to me that a car with fewer than 1400 miles on the odometer would need so much work, but that’s what happens when you simply let a car sit. This machine is begging to be driven.
Just look at it
Because of its rarity, this Isdera is probably not going to sell cheaply. You’ll really have to pony up if you want one, because the rest of the bidders at RM Sotheby’s auction in Miami on February 27 will also know that they’d be foolish to hold on to greenbacks when there’s an opportunity to diamond hands this Isdera Imperator.
The pre-auction estimate for this machine puts its value somewhere between $650,000 and $850,000. Being that it’s a very rare opportunity for a very rare car, it could easily go over the estimate if a bunch of hungry bidders are in the room. Then again, because everyone can guess at the future value of their money, perhaps they’re saving up to bid on something even bigger, and it’ll fall short. So few of these sell, it’s impossible to provide comps. The last time this one sold, at Bonhams’ Monaco sale in 2021, it brought 690,000 euros. Bid if you want to feel alive again.
It goes without saying, or it should anyway, that none of this is financial advice, and if you think that you should load yourself up on debt to purchase an Isdera you probably don’t have the financial sense needed to navigate real life. It would make you a legend, though. And when we revert to a bartering system of trade post economic breakdown, you’ll be able to trade rides in your Isdera for bread and bone broth, so it’s basically an investment in your future.