Get to Know Warren Mosler and His Creation, the Consulier GTP

Despite not selling as hoped, Warren Mosler's Consulier GTP was, if nothing else, ambitious for its time.

In the not-so-distant past, we even had the opportunity to get to know Mosler.

Since that was before some Grassroots Motorsports staff members were even born, here's our own J.G. Pasterjak to better explain what it was like to really know Mosler:

So, a lot of the things about the Consulier were ahead of its time. Maybe too ahead of its time for it to work as well as it should have. I mean, down to the whole narrative of the car: 'Slightly eccentric but brilliant rich guy starts his own car company because he's frustrated that OEMs won't use cutting edge technology to further the state of the art.'

Where have we heard that story before? Warren Mosler was Elon Musk without the glaring personality defects, but with a love for club racing. A lot of people forget that Mosler was racing Showroom Stock Volkswagens with the SCCA when he started the car company.

So lap times were always a huge consideration for the various evolutions of Consuliers. Maybe even too much of a consideration, as frequently creature comforts were sacrificed for more speed. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I think it's awesome that Mosler never had any real goals outside of building a car that went fast and made him happy.

He never really cared if it was the car that celebrities wanted to be seen in, or if it hung on posters on kid's walls. He just wanted to push the boundaries of accessible technologies and set some lap records. I spent a lot of time in Conlsuliers in various states of tune and trim on both street and track, and they're darn good cars.

Some of the early design cues were goofy, but the overall shapes have aged pretty well I think, and the performance is still world-class. That it was all done out of a moderately sized shop in South Florida with a small staff makes it even more impressive.

Unlike Musk, Mosler didn't seem to be trying to invent new technologies. His thing seemed to be more to take existing technologies that were being severely underutilized—like carbon composites—and find ways to apply them to a series, or even mass production. He wasn't the first guy to utilize stuff like Kevlar and S-glass in car construction, and focus on concepts like lightness and stiffness, but he was one of the first to do anything but apply those concepts to a one-off or dedicated race car. 

A notable line from a MotorWeek retro review that discusses the production of the GTP: "Will Warren Mosler be the nest Henry Ford, or the next Preston Tucker? Only Time—and a MotorWeek road test—will tell."

For further reading about the Consulier GTP, check out our buyer's guide, should you ever find yourself in the market for one.

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