Hooniverse Weekend Edition – A 1985 Bitter SC Project
Welcome to another Hooniverse Weekend Edition. There was a posting this past week in which Jim Yu wrote about a group of classic car enthusiasts exercising their vehicles of choice through the counties of Marin and Sonoma. Since this is Hooniverse, I thought I would devote an entire weekend of low cost, but very interesting project cars that could make this run when finished. Just for good measure, if these “low cost” heaps are a little too much work, then you can always turn them into Index-of-Effluency winning 24-Hours-of-LeMons contenders, and I included an very interesting support vehicle for that venture. Either way, welcome to Interesting Project Weekend, and let’s start with this 1985 Bitter SC.
According to all things Wikiedia:
Bitter was a premium sports-luxury automobile marque originally produced in Germany and later Austria. Founder Erich Bitter, a former race car driver turned automobile tuner, importer and ultimately designer began crafting his own vehicles after business ventures with Italian manufacture Intermeccanica ended. The Bitter automobile company initially produced vehicles between 1973 and 1989, selling them in Europe and the United States.
The Bitter SC was based on Opel’s biggest contemporary model, the Opel Senator, and was sold from 1979-1989 as a coupe, sedan and convertible. The SC was powered by a fuel-injected Opel 3.0 l-I6, rated at 177HP, or a stroked 3.9 l-I6 that developed 207HP. Body design seems to have been heavily influenced by Ferrari`s 400i. The first SC model to appear was the Coupe (1979), followed by the Convertible (1982) and the Sedan (1984). Production lasted until 1989 with 461 Coupes, 22 Convertibles and only 5 Sedans built.
This Rare 1985 Bitter SC Coupe is one of those 461 built by Bitter Motors in the 1980′s. Erich Bitter coupled reliable Opel mechanicals with Italian style to create a sports/luxury car, and in the words of the listing, combining the best of both worlds. This particular car was donated to charity after sitting for a decade under a carport. It does run and drive, but there is a fuel leak, so the seller states that the idle is a little rough.
Very little rust, original and badly faded paint, and dry leather interior are the only real bad points to this car, but it could be brought back to life with a modest budget. The current bid for this very rare German Automobile is $2,025, which is a little over LeMons territory, but it could be your ticket to an affordable, yet stunningly rare continental coupe. See the listing here, and tell me what you think.
Related posts:
- Hooniverse Weekend Edition – Divorce can make you bitter edition.
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- Hooniverse Weekend Edition – A BMW Art Car Project for kids….
- Hooniverse Lost Car Weekend – The 1985-89 Dodge Lancer
- Hooniverse Lost Car Weekend – The 1985-89 Isuzu FWD I-Mark
If the wheels are the same size & offset, why not match each side of the car?
Was thinking that exactly.
Amazingly pretty car. Never seen one before this.
I haven't seen one of these in a million years – I remember seeing an article in either Car and Driver or Road & Track, and I think I saw one at the Dallas Auto Show one year. I'd forgotten that the interior looked like a whorehouse.
Yea, that brothel interior is only rivalled by Spyker.
I actually did yard work in the mid-80's for a guy who had one of these.
Still neat-looking, though I don't want the project car Hell which it'll bring with it.
Why must it be in California? I've always wanted a Bitter SC, and a budget Bitter needing work would be ideal. The slushbox is a negative, but I don't even think that any Bitter purists (if they exist) would fault me for swapping in a T5.
Sadly, the shipping costs from CA to MI would bump the total price by a significant percentage.
That said, I've added it to my watch list, and if the bidding stays near the current bid, I'll have a lot of talking myself out of it to do come Tuesday.
I live in Cali. I'd drive it out to you for only the price of gas and a ticket home.
'Cept that it's road-going condition is unknown, and the adventure might turn into some sort of horror story. It might die after ten miles. More likely, it'd die at the point of the trip that's most geographically distant from any other point.
Really? What about having it shipped on a flatbed?
I figure shipping would run somewhere north of $800, which while not a lot of money, is a 40% bump in initial cost at the current bid price, for no added value. The car is no different at the destination than it was at its origin. That same $800 is somehow easier to swallow on a more expensive car. Paying $10,800 for a $10,000 car isn't quite the kick in the balls that spending $2800 on a $2000 car is.
Looking forward to the support vehicle. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it appears to include a grouchy old man in sweat pants.
Somebody buy it now. You may never find another, much less at this price. It's pretty rough, but together and complete. So a light refreshing should make a nice driver out of it. Body parts will be rarer than unicorns, but drivetrain bits should be available in Eurolandia. The biggest issue for me would be fabricating a front bumper with less underbite.
This car is also a reminder of how much pickier we've become about low volume manufacturers, and things like panel fit and resolution of detail bits and finishes. Ferraris used to look like the workers had built them by throwing parts at the chassis from across the workshop.
I've never heard of Erich Bitter or the Bitter car before. What an interesting life he has had. My friends will be so glad to hear all about it. Ha. http://www.bittercars.com/bitter/bitter.nsf/pages…
It looks so much like a Ferrari 400/412. Wonder if the colour is Bitter Chocolate Brown?
I used to see a few Bitters in Florida – handsome cars that don't really call attention to themselves but come off as being well-tailored. I don't think a Bitter will ever be a highly-desirable collectible, so with this car I'd ditch the hard-to-service Opel drivetrain and put in something recent from GM, like a SBC/6-speed from a crashed Corvette. There used to be a Bitter CD – predecessor to the SC – occasionally parked in my neighborhood. Now that car was striking.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Bitter_cd_v_sst.jpg" width=500>
I'd almost be tempted to go with the Atlas engine out of a Trailblazer, just to keep with an I6.
SBC under the hood is never the answer… unless it's a Chevy. Engine swaps are fine and all, but SBCs are overdone, and there's plenty of other good options out there.
It is a viable answer when the base car is an Opel – a GM product. Also, Opel used SBCs in its Diplomat and Admiral models in the 1960s and 1970s, so there is a true historical precedent. Plus the SBC is both lightweight and powerful, so it won't hurt the Bitter's dynamics or handling.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Opel_Diplomat_A_V8_Coup%C3%A9_1965-1967_frontleft_2008-07-17_U.jpg/640px-Opel_Diplomat_A_V8_Coup%C3%A9_1965-1967_frontleft_2008-07-17_U.jpg" width=500>
At first glance, I thought this might be a pushrod engine, looking at that square box rocker cover, then I remembered the odd arrangement Opel used in the Manta 4 cylinders, which this 6 seems to be an extension of. They called it the CIH, or Cam-in-head. The cam was indeed in the head, but not an overhead cam. The cam followers were the typical hydraulic units found on most GM products, but they drove the also typical stamped steel rockers from GM directly without pushrods. I remember some heated discussion/arguments among SCCA types about whether this constituted an OHC engine which would have changed the Manta's classification/weight penalty or some such. Anyone else remember this?
It seems to me that the 3.9 was used in lots of cars, mainly Opels, but maybe in some other cars, too (Holdens and Vauxhalls?). The 3.9 started out as a 3.0, which would make sense for it being based on the 1.9l four. Here's a picture of the cam-in-head from a 1.9 (with a roller rocker added):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10498579@N07/3651476…
I think I saw these at the 1985 (or maybe 83? 84?) LA auto show. I liked them then, but then I've always loved the Ferrari 400's. It doesn't look that rough to me.. a little lexol on the seats…take a clay bar to the paint…some new fuel lines…and BLAM 80's Miami-Vice-ish classic…what could possibly go wrong…
I shipped a car from LA to Madison Heights, Mi in '08…it was only like 700-800 bucks.
.. a little lexol on the seats…
Don't forget the Leather Honey!
Probably have to Honey this interior a few times. I'd wager it's as dry as a bachelor pad's kitchen sponge.
Here is another Bitter SC for sale in the Bay Area.
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5wkcokPepJ0/TsRjOzUPq-I/AAAAAAAAPd4/7qZbKup9i7o/s1600/CIMG1375.JPG">
Ad here: (Actually, it's not listed anymore. It was listed for a shade under $8,000.)
More pictures here: http://karakullake.blogspot.com/2011/04/inside-bi…
Bitter…
Yeah. Seems Right
While I worked for a Chevrolet dealer, the other branch had one of these in for service, for something like two months – the parts manager admitted it was excessively difficult to source the Opel parts. I don't know if that'd stop me, but when owning a Ferrari 400/412 seems easy, it seems hard to justify the Bitter.
They can't have been trying very hard if they couldn't source parts for an Opel. Clue number one: it's not on the Chevrolet microfiche.
Fair enough – I could either be misremembering what happened, or it could just be they were taking a while to get over (would Senator parts be all that common?).
I always thought Bitters were very elegant cars. There was actually one here in northern Alberta at one time. SInce they're not very collectable, how about a "resto-mod" treatment for this one? A 7M-GTE engine, Recaros, Nardi steering wheel.