Meet The Ferat Vampire, A Modern Interpretation Of A Classic By Skoda

The latest design in Skoda’s ongoing rendering series, “Icons Get A Makeover,” was inspired by a film star. The Ferat Vampire first graced the silver screen 40 years ago and one of Skoda’s designers has reimagined it for the modern-day.

The 1972 Skoda 110 Super Sport was initially just a one-off concept car, but when director Juraj Herz needed a car for his 1982 film, “Ferat Vampire,” the car fit the bill. Or, it nearly fit the bill. Czech painter and graphic designer Theodor Pištěk gave the 110 Super Sport a red and black paint job, new head and taillights, and the massive spoiler that it’s hard to imagine the car without.

The movie centers around one Doctor Marek, who is dismayed that his nurse is leaving to become a rally driver with foreign automaker “Ferat.” It turns out that the car might be running on human blood (yes, really).

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In reality, the car was simply running gas, but not much of it. The engine, a 1.1-liter four-cylinder, made just 72 hp (73 PS/54 kW). Its wild design, though, was inspiring to Skoda’s Baptiste de Brugiere.

“About three years ago I had the opportunity to visit the ŠKODA Museum’s depository for the first time. It was there that I first saw the FERAT, which I found fascinating. So when I heard about the Icons Get a Makeover project, I immediately volunteered to create a modern interpretation of it,” said de Brugiere, in a statement.

As he tells it, he tried to draw the car from memory first, to preserve just the essence of the impact it had on him, then fill out the details. To ensure it played to modern tastes, though, he exaggerated some features, like the wing, and massaged others, like the pointy front end.

The nose of the original is “something that won’t necessarily look good in today’s perception of dynamic design,” said de Brugiere. “Today, the desired dynamics of a car’s looks are modeled a beast ready to jump, hence the muscular lines of today with a more muscular rear end.”

Among the more modern details are the X-shaped headlights that the designer says are a reference to the vampiric car’s fangs. Once he worked out all the details, though, drawing the final sketch was relatively easy.

“I only worked on the computer in the final stages, especially in the coloring phase,” adding that maintaining the red and black color scheme was an absolute must. ”The resulting illustration was pretty quick, but that only came after a lot of painstaking work.”

Sadly, these renderings and others like it, are simply a design exercise that Skoda has no intention of bringing into production. So we’ll never get a chance to find out if the modern car really does run on human blood!