Peter Monteverdi and Erich Bitter had much similarities. They were both racing drivers and they both imported cars from Italy before they started to build cars self. Besides, they both had to quit early because they couldn't manage the bigger companies. Erich Bitter was born as a son of a bicycle repairman in Schwelm (Germany) in 1933. He started his career as a professional racing cyclist, but soon switched over to racing driver for NSU, Volvo, Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche and especially Abarth. Beside it, he was importer of rally equipments and later Abarth- and Intermeccanica-sportcars. In 1969, he started with the production of the Bitter-sport cars on the chassis of the more luxury Opels. When Bob A. Lutz, nowadays the boss of Chrysler, was the boss of Opel, there developed a 'dream car', the Astra, in co-operation with the Italian coach-work builder Frua. General Motors wasn't happy with the project, because man thought it was a too dangerous concurrent for the Corvette. The Astra-project in Germany was cancelled. Erich Bitter imported the Intermeccanica-sportscar but wasn't very happy with the quality. When he got the chance to take over the design of the Astra, he took it and built the first Bitter Diplomat CD in 1972. The energy crisis prevented unfortunately a huge production of the car, which had a V8-engine. Totally, there were sold more than 400 cars till 1979. When Opel stopped with the production of the Diplomat, Bitter had to switch over to the parts of the Senator. The new car's name was SC. In 1986, Erich Bitters company became bankrupt and Erich left to the United States. ©VEA
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