Mosler Consulier GTP: What Happened To The Strange American-Built Supercar
Imagine being so confident in the automobile that you have designed that you put out a call in Car and Driver that if anyone could beat the lap time of your car, you'd award them $25,000. Well, that is exactly what Warren Mosler did back in 1991 to show off the capabilities of his Consulier GTP sports car. Though they were able to get a Chevrolet Corvette to beat that time — which Mosler claims was against a Consulier GTP that had worn brake pads and tires — there's no question that this car was a machine built for speed.
The GTP originally housed a Chrysler 2.2 Turbo II engine, which gave the vehicle upwards of 175 bhp. That engine was eventually replaced by the Turbo III, bumping up that bhp to 195. While that isn't the highest horsepower anyone had ever seen, what gave the GTP its speed was that it only had a curb weight of 2,200 pounds. You put that kind of engine in a car that weighs that little, and you are looking at a vehicle that will send you flying down the street.
Naturally, this was a car meant for racing. But it was such a successful race car that the International Motor Sports Association had to put a stop to it, first giving it a 300-pound weight penalty and then just banning it outright in 1991. After that, the Mosler Consulier GTP only had two more years of life before getting a branding shakeup.
[Image by Mr.choppers via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]
Getting some new names
A car built for racing that is unable to race makes no sense, so when Consulier Industries decided to create its automotive division in 1993, naturally called Mosler Automotive, it said goodbye to the Consulier GTP. Thus, the Mosler Intruder was born. This was basically still the GTP that we knew but upgraded. It still sported a lightweight 1,020 kg body (2,249 pounds), but under the hood was a modified Corvette LT1 V8 engine. Mosler was able to get back onto the racetrack, but once again, it was such a successful race car that it, too, was banned in 1994.
Mosler Automotive again chose to rename the car and give it an updated design. Starting in 1997, it would be known as the Mosler Raptor. The biggest change aesthetically to the vehicle was the split, V-shaped front windshield, which did admittedly look ridiculous. The Raptor was also much larger than the previous models, with Car and Driver measuring the car at 2,773 pounds.
That body was able to handle 446 hp. Because of the new name, look, and engine, Mosler found itself able to compete once again on the race track, where it was racking up wins just as frequently as the previous two iterations of the vehicle. So, it was banned once again.
[Image by 22consulier via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]
The MT900 era
The Consulier/Intruder/Raptor era of Mosler Automotive came to an end in the year 2000, but that was not the end of it making sports cars. The following year, it debuted its primary vehicle for the remaining 12 years of Mosler Automotive's existence, the MT900. According to Car and Driver, this new vehicle was lighter than the Raptor at just 2,590 pounds and could handle 350 hp with its 1998 Corvette LS1 5.7L V8 engine.
Unlike its previous vehicles, Mosler decided to make a modified version of the MT900 strictly for racing, called the MT900R. While it did win some races during its time, it was not the world-beater that the Consulier GT models were. Therefore — as far as our research states — the MT900R was never banned from racing. Not much sense in banning it if it isn't automatically picking up most of the trophies in its path if not all of them. The standard MT900 would receive an upgrade in 2005 called the MT900S.
Production on the MT900 line would seize in 2011, and Mosler Automotive shut down entirely two years later. In its short life, it made some really fast production cars, which were so fast that they irritated just about everyone racing against them. Warren Mosler was a Wall Street guy with a lot of money who decided he wanted to make some fast cars. In that endeavor, he succeeded. In making a beautiful vehicle that history remembers fondly, not so much.