C1000
One Thousand Horsepower
Built for a Sheikh.
Built for No One Else.
In 1995, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum — Chairman of Emirates Group — commissioned LOTEC to build him a car. Not a tuned production car. Not a modified supercar. A purpose-built hypercar, designed and engineered from scratch, with one specification: 1,000 horsepower.
LOTEC chose the Mercedes M117 V8 as the foundation — the same engine family that had powered the Sauber-Mercedes C9 to Le Mans victory in 1989. Twin turbocharged, it produced exactly what was asked of it: 1,000 hp. The chassis was a carbon fibre monocoque.
The numbers were extraordinary for 1995. The claimed top speed of approximately 268 mph (432 km/h) was never officially verified — the car was never subjected to a formal record attempt — but the engineering to support such a claim was real.
The owner's manual ran to eight pages. One passage stood out: if the turbos were set to 1.2 bar boost, torque would rise to 1,200 Nm. At that point, the warranty was void. The manual was not a threat. It was a statement of what the car was capable of.
Only one C1000 was ever built. It remained in the Sheikh's possession for years before eventually being acquired by American collector Jonathan Weisman. The car was subsequently restored by Curated in Miami, under the guidance of John Hooper, returning it to running condition.
The C1000 is, by any measure, one of the most extreme hypercars ever built — and one of the least known. LOTEC never marketed it. They built it, delivered it, and moved on.
"If turbos are set to 1.2 bar and torque rises to 1,200 Nm — warranty void."
From the 8-page C1000 owner's manual
Mercedes M117 — A Racing Pedigree
Based on the same engine family that powered the Sauber-Mercedes C9 to Le Mans victory in 1989. LOTEC's twin-turbo conversion took this proven architecture and pushed it to its absolute limits. The result was an engine that produced more power than any road car of its era — and did so with the reliability that a single, extremely wealthy customer demanded.
Carbon Fibre Monocoque
The C1000's carbon fibre monocoque chassis was the same construction method used in contemporary Formula 1 and Le Mans prototype racing cars. It was not a common choice for a road car in 1995 — it was an extraordinary one. Combined with the mid-engine layout, it gave the C1000 a power-to-weight ratio that no production car of the era could match.