Is The Red Skull's Schmidt Hydra Coupe The Ultimate Villain Ride? Video

By Kurt Ernst

Kurt Ernst

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Kurt has been fascinated by anything with wheels and a motor for a long time. Growing up, he spent his spare time turning wrenches and pumping gas in... More

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1,517 views Aug 24, 2012

In movies, the good guys generally drive the best cars. Pick a James Bond film, for example, and it’s usually 007 with both the coolest ride and and the coolest gadgets. We’d take Frank Bullitt’s Mustang fastback over the plus-sized Dodge Charger, too, although Mopar fans will certainly disagree on this one.

We’d be hard-pressed to name a villain car cooler than the V-16-powered Schmidt Hydra Coupe, the personal ride of fictional Nazi supervillain Johan Schmidt, better known to Marvel Comics hero Captain America as the Red Skull.

In the movies, the open-air coupe (which makes it a convertible, by our reasoning) is powered by a V-16 airplane engine, and power is sent to all six wheels. It’s also supposed to be the fastest car of the time, although we’re not sure that’s a good thing when you’re talking about something that’s 25 feet long.

In reality, Autoblog points out that the Daniel Simon designed car is powered by a Ford V-8 and rides on a truck chassis. Simon, a former Volkswagen Group designer, was reportedly influenced by the Mercedes-Benz 540K, as well as vintage Bentleys and classic Duesenbergs.

We’d call his design stunning, and there’s no denying that the car has a presence. If we were bent on world domination, we’d probably procure this as our own personal ride, too, after we swapped the Ford V-8 for the Bugatti Veyron’s quad-turbo W-16 engine.