1951
Several experiments were carried out throughout 1950, eventually leading to the development Luke Sinistra had been waiting for. Front Wheel Drive. Planning on making back their R&D costs quickly, the plan was pushed through for a luxury car.
With the plan in place, the company quickly assembled their first ever luxury car.
The Sinistra Emperor got an all-new high-displacement inline 6 with the company-traditional single-overhead cam. This was mated to a 3 speed manual gearbox with integrated center differential, which slid into place under the oil pan. Half shafts were fed from the center differential’s outputs to the wheels. The car was a unibody design with panels bolted into the subframe, not to save costs but to prepare for the future. This rigid chassis design reduced body flex and allowed Luke to think about safety.
Using the best of what the 50’s had to offer, Luke aimed to make the car safer than anything else on the road. At the same time, he tried unsuccessfully to solve the understeer problem, something that would take a lot longer to fix. In a big luxury cruiser like the Emperor, however, Luke felt it wasn’t that much of a problem. The odds of anyone pushing this car to the limits, well, wasn’t likely.
That said, the Emperor was no slouch. The 4.6 liter Inline 6 could haul this ton-and-a-half car up to 60 in 12 seconds, and if the driver had a long, straight road ahead of them, they could possibly hit 120 miles per hour.
Sales were, of course, expectedly quite low. A big, heavy boat loaded with expensive new technology tends to not sell in huge numbers anyway. And it’s not like Sinistra Motors had planned to make more than a few thousand Emperors anyway, at least not in their top luxury trim.