I thought I would share these pictures someone took and posted on the web. They were taken at a car show and are probably the best pictures of a Vector M12 I have ever seen of an M12. click here to see the gallery of pics

For those of you who don't know, here is some history on Vector and the M12. Vector was an American company and was started by Gerald Wiegert in the 1970s. He created many prototypes of what he thought was the perfect car (a merger of a jet and a car) most famously the Vector W2 prototype. I believe 34 Vector W8s were produced and sold between about 1976 and 1992. In '92 he unveiled his concept car called the WX-3. There are only two of them, one is a teal coupe (used to be painted silver) and one is a purple roadster. They look very similar to the M12 because they laid the basis for the M12. Both the W8 and WX-3 use turbocharged GM V8 engines. Long story short, Wiegert basically lost the company to an Indonesian firm that also owned Lamborghini at the time. This firm liked his design for the WX-3, but made it more aerodynamic and replaced the TT V8 engine with a Lamborghini V12 rated at 490 horsepower. The M12 was produced from 1996 until 1999 when Vector went bankrupt. Only 17 M12s were made and this is one of (I believe) 3 black ones.

Why did I post this here in the 5th gen and future vehicles forum? Because I thought some of you would appreciate the pictures of such a rare car and needed to see something that would make you appreciate your '93-'97 Camaros. It is pretty undeniable that the M12 has a similar front end in relation to the early 4th gen Camaros.

 

I know I should be amazed or awestruck, but for some reason it just doesn't grab me. also for the kind of money this thing probably went for in its day, the front blinkers could have been made to fit just a tad better. oh and the rear end is decidedly old-skool. It looked fine on a '60s Fiat, but it has no business being on the rear of a '90s exotic.

On the flip side, It's got to be one of the hottest collectables. Whoever owns that thing is a fortunate man.

 

It looks like a 4th Gen F-Body crossed with an Acura NSX.

 

Funny you mention that. The headlight switch, mirror switch, vents, and lighter seem to be 4th gen F-body parts .

Chris

 

I remember catching some info on Vector a while back, very interesting and unique cars. The M12 is very "Lambo-like" in stance and proportions, but it's off just enough to really make me smile. I dont know why the door outer skin really excites me though...

Awesome link. I downloaded all those to my hard drive for future drooling.

 

W2 version looked better (original concept model). So did the W8 (first eveolution of Vector). M12 version Vector has lost much of the edge and uniqueness of the original design IMO. You can drive two versions of Vectors (W8/M12) in Gran Turismo 2

 

Too extreme and over the top for my taste. I remember seeing pics of it for the first time a while back.

To my surprise, there are a good number of American supercar manufacturers (most people don't know of) and they never really get anywhere near the recognition of their European peers.

 

People say that M12s aren't that great of quality and such, but I don't really care. If I had that car, I'd probably put it in my mansion as a centerpiece. Love it or hate it, that car is some work of art. There may be faster and better quality cars, but for just pure looks, that is definitely my favorite car of all.

 

There is a guy around this area here that has two W8s one yellow and one painted like the american flag. I cant remember his name off the top of my head but I was told he ownes the Vector company. He has taken the yellow one to a local track while his buddy drove his viper down and they dragged side by side a few times. Pretty cool but they couldnt drive them for sh*t. He also ownes a lambo diablo.

 

Well there is only one yellow W8 and there aren't any American Flag W8s.

The yellow W8 has an ostrich skin leather interior and is owned by a guy named Tony in California. It is in kind of bad condition, he has been having to rebuild the engine because it was modified to over 900 horsepower. (Stock W8s are all pretty different, but tend to have about 610 hp)

There are at least 2 Vector M12s with the American flag paint job, I don't know the location of them though.

The original owner and creator of Vector is Gerald Wiegert. He used to own the purple WX-3 roadster, aqua WX-3 coupe, and one of the original prototypes for the W8 which was red. He sold the W8 prototype last year and it was painted black either before the sale or by the new owner. Supposedly the car was in bad shape from having cardboard boxes stacked on top of it in a warehouse. Both of the WX-3s were sold to Toyota of Glendora I believe, which is a Toyota dealership in some place called Glendora. I'm not sure what they do with them. The reason he sold these 3 cars is because he is trying to fund his new project which seems to be a car aimed at competing with the market who are interested in buying Lamborghini Gallardos.

It is fun being a fan of Vector, but it is too bad that they are hard to track down. You would think approximately 60 to 70 cars total wouldn't be hard to keep track of, but some Vector owners are really secretive (or old). Andre Agassi once owned, or still does own a W8, and Shaquille O'Neal owned a silver M12 that he had sold on ebay a few years ago. If any of you are interested (and this is not a plug for the site) but you should join the message board on www.vectoraeromotiveclub.com There are only a few people and about half are just kids who like the cars, but it is still cool.

 

Holy Front overhang Batman

I guess for its age it makes sense... but eugh.

 

For its age? I don't know where you've been, but even a Lamborghini Murcielago and Ferrari Enzo have massive overhangs.

By the way, Chuck, I asked somebody from the vector message boards about your post. He said that there IS a yellow and American flag M12 owned by the guy who owns American Automotive (which also owns the rights to the company name "Vector Aeromotive"). It just confused me because you said W8. You should take some pictures of those Vectors next time you see them. I'd love to see the pics. It would be awesome if you could get a shot of them next to some normal cars like maybe a 350Z or something. It's just a little cooler when you have something to compare a car (that you probably won't ever see in real life) to in a pic.

EDIT: Hell, get a pic of your Camaro next to one of the M12s, that would be WAY better of a pic to me.

 

Thats true, I guess its an optical thing since from the pics the front is so prominent as apposed to the rear overhang which already seems way smaller.

Looked at some pics, the Murcielago does have quite a bit up front, but not as much as the M12 and the lambos rear looks a bit longer.

The Enzo s just visually atrocious anyway, it looks like any sense of design was sacrificed for performance. I guess as the child of an F1 car it would look like one, but eugh.

 

The Enzo takes some getting used to. But once you realize just how damn good this
http://carpics.free.fr/ferrari_enzo0109/DSC02568.html
looks, you realize it is really beautiful.

 

I remeber reading about the Vector W12 in Road and Track back in the day. As somebody mentioned earlier, its a 200mph piece of art.



Too bad the Vector name has been tainted by a pyrimid scam also called Vector. Vector the company targets college age and high school graduates to come work for them. From what I've heard, the employees are salespeople who have to set up appointments with middle aged housewives to go sell kitchen knives to them. Their pay is commision, so if they don't sell enough knives, they end up making less than minimum wage.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but a couple of my friends got scammed by the Vector company, and I almost did too until I read about them on the internet.