Vector Motors
1971, a year when India was fighting the Bangladesh war, a youngster by the name of Gerald Wiegart, fresh from college teamed up with a man named Lee Brown to create a design house called Vehicle Design Force. The first car that they conceptualized and built was called The Vector. The first Vector was just a body without an engine. It was announced that the Wankel engine from the Mercedes-Benz C111 would be used in the car. Although the car appeared in Motor Trend after its debut, it was never seen on the roads since.
7 years later, Wiegart conceptualized the W2. Like the Vector, this car was also immobile when it debuted at the auto show in 1978. He got the car running only in 1979. In its entire lifespan, it got 100,000 miles on its odometer – the most by any concept car. The W2 was extensively tested by Motor Trend and British automotive TV show Top Gear. The Vector was able to touch a speed of 230 mph. Thus, the company received a lot of positive response from the public as well as press in the 1980’s.
1991 began the era of the Vector Aeromotive Corporation. The first car that the company produced was the W8. Few know that the production of this car began from the money Wiegart earned from suing the Goodyear Tire Company for illegally using the Vector name on one of its products. The W8 was basically a W2 re-engineered. In early 1991, 2 prototype mules of this car were made and production of the car began only in late 1991. That year, the company sold a W8 to the famous tennis player Andre Agassi. Agassi’s insistence on its early delivery resulted in its hurried assembly and delivery to Agassi with a warning not to drive it around since it wasn’t complete since it was hand built. Because of the negative publicity generated by Agassi’s cars failure and ensuing refund to him by the Vector Automotive Corporation, only 21 units of the car were sold in all.
By 1993, Vector began work on the Avtech WX-3 and its racing counterpart the Avtech WX-3R. When the Avtech debuted in 1993, Vector was bought over by an Indonesian Company MegaTech. MegaTech offered Wiegart a retirement plan and a position as a designer. He refused and was thus fired from the company. During MegaTechs administration, two unsold W8’s were destroyed and its production was stopped and the WX-3 was cancelled.
Wiegert took back all the Vector assets, including the W8 prototypes, the WX-3s, and the M12 molds. An Ohio based company called American Aeromotive bought the remains of the MegaTech which had gone bankrupt years later. The idea behind this was to restart production under the Vector banner. Since then, Wiegart renamed the company several times – Avtech Motors, Vector Supercars and then Vector Motors – but neither he nor American Aeromotive produced cars. Though the SRV8 (Whose production began under the MegaTech banner) was completed by them, the public reaction was negative owing to its similarities with the M12 (another car whose production began under the MegaTech banner.) and Top Gear calling it the worst car ever made.
Vector Motors was created with the intention of finding America’s answer to Lamborghini and Ferrari but it ended with the shutting down of the company.
-Aditya Sunilkumar
Tags: car, cars, Sports, sports car, sports car manufacturer, sports cars, vector motors
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