---
title: Lotec Sirius · HICONIUM
description: "Kurt Lotterschmid built the Sirius: a twin-turbocharged Mercedes V12 in a hand-laminated carbon body. At 1.2 million Deutschmarks it found no series customers. The single car has never crossed an auction block."
canonical_url: https://hiconium.dev/vehicles/lotec/sirius
image: https://hiconium.dev/og/vehicle/lotec/sirius.png
---

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> On this page: [The price and the proof](#the-price-and-the-proof) · [Model readouts](#model-readouts) · [Documented sales](#documented-sales) · [Eight years in a Bavarian machine shop](#overview-heading) · [Technical specifications](#technical-specifications) · [Powertrain](#powertrain) · [Structure](#structure) · [Dimensions](#dimensions) · [Performance](#performance) · [Heritage](#heritage) · [Eight years, three men](#the-build) · [Twelve cylinders, two turbochargers](#the-engine) · [Un-mothballed](#the-comeback) · [Milestones](#milestones) · [The people behind the car](#the-people-behind-the-car) · [Kurt Lotterschmid](#kurt-lotterschmid)

![Lotec Sirius in silver, front three-quarter view on a dark stage with a single bright star above](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/hero-wide-2560.jpg)

# Sirius

One man, one car, 400 km/h

Kurt Lotterschmid built the Sirius: a twin-turbocharged Mercedes V12 in a hand-laminated carbon body. At 1.2 million Deutschmarks it found no series customers. The single car has never crossed an auction block.

2000 · One of one · Kolbermoor, Bavaria

## The price and the proof

Indicative road-car band €3M–€3.2M · 4 documented road sales. Modeled values are not observed sales. Nothing here is investment advice.

Confidence: estimate. The Sirius has never been offered at public auction. The band rests on one reported private transaction: the present owner is understood to have paid about €3.0 million in 2023, and the file carries a current assessment of €3.16 million net.

EUR band from the reported 2023 private purchase (€3.0M) to the current €3.16M net assessment on file. Period figures — the 1.2M DM factory asking price and period editorial estimates — remain in the ledger below; the restored sibling C1000 was valued at $7.72M in 2024.

Valuation method and source rules: [HICONIUM standards](https://hiconium.dev/standards). Observed auction results across the wider market: [Market terminal](https://hiconium.dev/market).

### Model readouts

4 documented anchors. model v1 · seed lotec-sirius. Compound annual growth is modeled price CAGR; S&P 500 is a price index without dividends. Forecast quantiles are not investment advice.

| Window | This car* | S&P 500 | Gold |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1Y | -6.7% | +18.8% | +21.9% |
| 5Y | +1.5% | +11.4% | +17.6% |
| 10Y | +2.5% | +13.3% | +11.8% |

| Series | Deepest drawdown | Window |
| --- | --- | --- |
| This car* | -13.0% | Jul 2008 → Mar 2009 · recovered Mar 2010 |
| S&P 500 | -50.8% | Oct 2007 → Mar 2009 · recovered Mar 2013 |
| Gold | -39.3% | Sep 2011 → Dec 2015 · recovered Jul 2020 |

| Horizon | P10 | P50 | P90 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +6M | €2'850'282 | €3'123'337 | €3'422'550 |
| +12M | €2'822'369 | €3'168'353 | €3'556'750 |
| +24M | €2'778'338 | €3'260'341 | €3'825'965 |

### Documented sales

4 recorded. Every public sale on this file, newest first. Amounts keep the recorded currency. Source links appear only when the catalog stores a public auction-lot URL.

| Date | Chassis / label | Class | House | Venue | Amount | Currency | Basis | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2023 | Reported private sale | Road |  | Private transaction | €3'000'000 | EUR |  |  |
| 2004 | Period European price estimate | Road |  | Published guide figure | €1'462'000 | EUR |  |  |
| 2003 | Period editorial estimate | Road |  | Published guide figure | €812'000 | EUR |  |  |
| 2001 | Factory asking price for the planned series | Road |  | Kolbermoor | €614'000 | EUR |  |  |

No public auction result exists for the Sirius. The reported private transaction is recorded as received; period figures are recorded as published.

## Eight years in a Bavarian machine shop

Kurt Lotterschmid had been building other people's fast cars since 1962 — Interserie winners, thousand-horsepower turbo Ferraris, the C1000 one-off delivered to Dubai for more than $3.4 million. In 1992 he began the car that would carry his own name furthest: a 400 km/h road car, at a time when the McLaren F1's 368 km/h stood as the mark.

Eight years and six to seven million Deutschmarks later the Sirius reached the Geneva salon. The series never came — Michelin capped the tyres at 380 km/h, the Dubai and China production deals collapsed one after another — and the one car stayed in Kolbermoor until its 2024 revival under the Lotec Legacy banner: Ultrace, then Goodwood, back on its original BBS wheels.

| Highlight | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Shaped with an angle grinder | There was no designer and no CAD. Lotterschmid glued up a 1:4 block of chipboard and cut the Sirius shape freehand with a grinder over two evenings. Every line of the finished car traces back to that block. |
| The Zonda's engine, doubled | The Mercedes M120 V12 that powers the Pagani Zonda leaves Kolbermoor with two KKK K27 turbochargers and up to 1200 PS — roughly twice what AMG's naturally aspirated versions made at the time. |
| Michelin said 380 | The car was conceived to beat the McLaren F1's 368 km/h and pass 400. The speedometer reads to 400, but Michelin only released the tyres to 380 km/h — so the headline number remains theoretical to this day. |
| Dubai wanted 350 of them | A planned run of 20 to 50 cars at 1.2 million DM never happened. Investors from Dubai floated 350 units, Chinese partners discussed 20 — every deal collapsed, and the prototype stayed the only one. |
| Instruments from a Porsche 944 | The dashboard architecture and instruments came straight off the Porsche 944 parts shelf — the pragmatism of a three-man build. Only the speedometer was rescaled, to 400 km/h. |
| Never sold, never auctioned | The Sirius has never crossed an auction block; if it changed hands at all, it did so privately. The single example is the entire market — and the restored sibling C1000 was valued at $7.72 million in 2024. |

| Label | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Built | 1 |
| Debut | Geneva 2000 |
| Press launch | October 2001 |
| Development | 8 years, 6–7M DM |
| Doors | Scissor |
| Launch price | 1.2M DM |

## Technical specifications

### Powertrain

| Label | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Engine | Mercedes-Benz M120 V12, 5'987 cc | W140 donor unit — the same base engine as the Pagani Zonda |
| Induction | Two KKK K27 turbochargers | two air-to-air intercoolers, dry sump |
| Output at 0.85 bar | 1000 PS at 6'300 rpm | factory figure; period tests also cite 850 bhp |
| Output at 1.2 bar | up to 1200 PS | claimed maximum boost |
| Torque | 1'100–1'320 Nm | boost-dependent |
| Engine management | Lotec TurboTronic | developed with LENZ Elektronik GmbH, Kolbermoor |
| Gearbox | CIMA 6-speed manual transaxle | limited-slip differential, traction control — as Zonda and early Koenigsegg |

### Structure

| Label | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Chassis | Carbon body over CrMo steel tube and carbon frame | Lotec Legacy today describes it as a carbon monocoque — factory-era sources differ |
| Suspension | Double wishbones, inboard coilovers | anti-roll bars front and rear |
| Brakes | Brembo, ventilated and drilled | ABS and servo assistance |
| Wheels | Three-piece 19-inch | 9.5×19 with 255/40 front, 13×19 with 345/30 rear |
| Ride height | Electro-hydraulic lift, 80 to 160 mm | smooth underbody, twin safety fuel cells in the sills |

### Dimensions

| Label | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Length | 4'120 mm |  |
| Width | 2'080 mm |  |
| Height | 1'120 mm |  |
| Kerb weight | ≈1'280 kg (factory era) | period tests cite 1'390 kg; Lotec Legacy states 1'562 kg today |

### Performance

| Label | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 0–100 km/h | 3.8 s | traction-limited |
| 0–200 km/h | 7.8 s |  |
| Top speed | ≈400 km/h, claimed | Michelin released the tyres to 380 km/h; no timed run was ever published |
| Consumption | 25–30 l/100 km Super Plus | 6.8 l at a constant 120 km/h |

## Heritage

> A car that was entirely his own, from the first sketch to the final bolt.
>
>
>
> Lotec Legacy

### Eight years, three men

1992–2000

The Sirius was never a company project with a design department behind it. Lotterschmid shaped the 1:4 model himself from glued chipboard, freehand, with an angle grinder — two evenings' work that fixed the silhouette for good. Scaling it up took eight years, most of them nights and weekends around the paying work of the Kolbermoor shop.

The goal was stated plainly: the first road car past 400 km/h. Development consumed six to seven million Deutschmarks, and when the car finally rolled out in 2000 its speedometer was rescaled to 400 — with instruments and dashboard architecture borrowed, pragmatically, from a Porsche 944.

![Kurt Lotterschmid standing beside the finished Sirius with the original quarter-scale styling model in front](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/btr-scale-model.jpg)

![Lotec Sirius head-on in the studio, official Lotec Legacy press image](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/press-studio-front.jpg)

![The Sirius with both scissor doors open in the Bavarian foothills, factory archive photograph](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/factory-doors-open.jpg)

### Twelve cylinders, two turbochargers

The powertrain

The starting point is the Mercedes M120 — the 6.0-litre V12 from the W140 S-Class, the same base engine Pagani chose for the Zonda. Lotec added two KKK K27 turbochargers, two intercoolers and a dry sump, and wrote its own engine management: the TurboTronic system, developed with LENZ Elektronik in Kolbermoor.

Output depends on how far the driver turns the boost: roughly 1000 PS at 0.85 bar, up to 1200 PS and 1320 Nm at 1.2 bar — manufacturer figures, stated with the confidence of a man who built every part of the installation himself. The CIMA six-speed transaxle that takes the torque is the same Modenese gearbox the Zonda and early Koenigseggs relied on.

![Sirius with doors and rear clamshell open, exposing the twin-turbo V12 installation](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/btr-engine-open.jpg)

![Sirius interior with blue leather seats and LOTEC sill plates](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/btr-interior.jpg)

![Lotec Sirius driving on an alpine pass at golden hour, official Lotec Legacy imagery](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/legacy-road-alpine.jpg)

### Un-mothballed

2024–2026

For two decades the Sirius mostly sat in Kolbermoor — a rumour with number plates. In 2024 it was recommissioned, and the revival gathered pace fast: a research feature, start-up videos from Lake Tegernsee, a period on Work wheels before the original three-piece BBS set went back on.

In June 2026 the Sirius and the C1000 stood together for the first time, at Ultrace in Wrocław. A month later the Sirius ran the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed — the first Lotec ever to appear there, campaigned by the family's Lotec Legacy operation. The one-off that nobody bought has become the centrepiece of the brand's second life.

![Lotec Sirius with scissor doors open at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2026](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/goodwood-fos-2026.jpg)

![Sirius rolling shot at golden hour, official Lotec Legacy press image](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/press-rolling-golden.jpg)

![Lotec Sirius in silver on a mountain road at sunset, official Lotec Legacy imagery](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/legacy-road-sunset.jpg)

### Milestones

| Date | Title | What happened | Standing |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1992 | The chipboard model | Lotterschmid begins planning his own 400 km/h car and cuts the 1:4 styling model from glued chipboard with an angle grinder — no designer, no CAD. |  |
| 2000 | Geneva debut | The finished Sirius appears at the Geneva Motor Show: twin-turbo M120 V12, scissor doors, a speedometer rescaled to 400 km/h. |  |
| October 2001 | 1.2 million Deutschmarks | Press launch. Lotec quotes 1.2M DM per car for a planned run of 20 to 50; Dubai investors float 350 units. None of it materialises. |  |
| 2004 | First outside drive | Auto Bild becomes the first outside outfit to drive the Sirius; the 400 km/h claim remains undemonstrated, the tyres released only to 380. |  |
| 2009 | The successor that never was | Lotec sketches an updated Sirius aimed at the Veyron and CCX era. It is never built; the original stays a one-off. |  |
| 2024 | Un-mothballed | After years in storage the Sirius returns to running order and the Lotec Legacy revival begins. |  |
| July 2026 | First Lotec at Goodwood | A month after meeting the C1000 at Ultrace in Wrocław, the Sirius runs the Goodwood hill on its original BBS wheels — the model's biggest public stage in a quarter century. |  |

## The people behind the car

### [Kurt Lotterschmid](https://hiconium.dev/people/kurt-lotterschmid)

Founder, designer and builder · Lotec GmbH

![Kurt Lotterschmid standing beside the Lotec Sirius](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/lotec-sirius/people/kurt-lotterschmid.jpg)

Master mechanic, racer and tuner from Kolbermoor. Founded Lotec in 1962, won the Interserie outright in 1979 and 1980 and the German C2 championship in 1983, then built turbo Mercedes and Ferraris before the C1000 and the Sirius. He shaped the Sirius himself and built it with two mechanics over eight years.

One of the last men to design, engineer and build a hypercar essentially alone.

### [LENZ Elektronik GmbH](https://hiconium.dev/people/lenz-elektronik-gmbh)

Engine management partner — TurboTronic · Kolbermoor

The local electronics house that co-developed Lotec's TurboTronic engine management, the system that lets the twin-turbo M120 V12 run its boost-dependent 1000 to 1200 PS.

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