Asardo Type 1500 AR-S
At the 1959 New York Auto Show, a small New Jersey-based carmaker exhibited this, the Asardo Type 1599 AR-S. An Austrian immigrant and machine shop owner named Helmut Schlosser was behind the design, which mated a very stiff, almost Mercedes-Benz 300 SL ’Gullwing’-like tube frame chassis to a hopped-up Alfa Romeo-sourced engine, with a swoopy fibreglass body on top.
It was unlike anything else at the show, and even today, the car has angles that make me wish we were talking about the 2025 Asardo model range made in New Jersey, rather than an enterprise that failed after just a single example was built.
Asardo promotional material and comic • Asardo, source unknown
Asardo stood for American Special Automotive Research and Development Organization, a name that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as easily as Lexus.
With a weight of just 680 kg (1500 lb) and a bored-out 1,300-cc Giulietta 4-cylinder engine with 135 horsepower, performance was strong.
Top speed? A blistering for the time 217 km/h (135 mph).
Built as a knowledgeable enthusiast’s sports car, with no formal automotive engineering experience, the car is remarkably compelling, even today. Schlosser used production car components where necessary, including door mechanisms from the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.
The Asardo • Fantasy Junction
Trouble with the project began when Schlosser’s backers wanted the car delivered without an engine, like other fibreglass sports cars were at the time. He disagreed, wanting instead to develop the car as a production-ready machine, with the hope of selling hundreds.
With a price some ~$1,800 above that of a Porsche 356, it was perhaps an optimistic price point for an unknown and largely untested car.
Once his backers dropped out after realizing Schlosser wouldn’t budge on offering the car without an engine, in 1960 he left to find an interested party…in Europe.
That didn’t work, so came back to the U.S. with the car later in 1960, returning to Europe again in 1961. A family illness brought him back to Europe, where his luck, sadly, didn’t improve: Schlosser ended up in the hospital…after being hit by a car!
