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" He may be Captain America, but super soldier Steve Rogers&amp;#039;s motorcycle pales in comparison to the car of his nemesis. In the new 1940s set film version of the classic comic, out July 22, the villain Johann Schmidt (also known as Red Skull) is leader of the evil organization HYDRA, and drives a spectacularly evil and epic car to match.  Red Skull didn&amp;#039;t have a vehicle in the Captain America comics, so his vehicle could have been anything, designer Daniel Simon says. So director Joe Johnston gave Simon (who also created the grid vehicles for last year&amp;#039;s Tron: Legacy) wide artistic freedom to create Schmidt&amp;#039;s coupe. &amp;quot;The only input I gave Daniel was that I wanted it to look like one of the classic Mercedes-Benz that the Germans were using during the war,&amp;quot; Johnston says, &amp;quot;but that Schmidt had taken it and had his guys re-engineer it.&amp;quot; First, Johnston, Simon and production designer Rick Hendricks had to decide how the car would drive. &amp;quot;Is it something very streamlined, futuristic looking, or is it something more like a real coupe?&amp;quot; Simon says. &amp;quot;I started thinking it could be a streamlined vehicle like a Germany&amp;#039;s Auto Union tried in the 30s. But it turned out that we were looking for something really upright, and something majestic. Something that a dictator would drive\u2014very dominant.&amp;quot; The team had one big advantage at its disposal\u2014the classic car design of the 1940s. The striking vehicles of that decade didn&amp;#039;t just look different than today&amp;#039;s, they were built in a totally different way. Manufacturers would build the chassis of their vehicles, then have different coach builders create the bodywork on top of it. &amp;quot;Maybe the owner said, I want this Mercedes to be designed by this coach builder in Italy, or I want this to be designed by the German guy,&amp;quot; Simon says. &amp;quot;So we said, okay, Schmidt has all this access to military research, so he has this amazing chassis built. It&amp;#039;s over 25 feet long... much longer than anything you would consider a car, but he&amp;#039;s a dictator, he wants to show his power. Then he has his car manufactured by the same people that built his HYDRA technology.&amp;quot;  Though Schmidt&amp;#039;s car is a weapon of war, it was also important that the vehicle reflected the villain&amp;#039;s love of art. &amp;quot;In the front, you see a very elegant car,&amp;quot; Simon says. &amp;quot;And towards the rear, where the wheels are covered, [you] see the toolboxes behind the front wheel. So it&amp;#039;s a mix of an elegant coupe and a military vehicle.&amp;quot;      Several classic cars inspired that look. The design team borrowed the front fenders and grille from the Mercedes 540k, one of the most expensive coupes of that time. The six-wheel design is based on the Mercedes G4. Simon also studied Duesenbergs, and he created an exposed supercharger between the front wheels because of a request from Johnston. &amp;quot;He said, &amp;#039;Daniel, do you know the Bentley Blower?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Simon says. &amp;quot;&amp;#039;It has this massive supercharger on the front. I want that on the car. &amp;#039;&amp;quot;  These and other light touches make the car look as evil as its driver. &amp;quot;Vehicle design is character design,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;In the moments where the character is sitting in the vehicle, everything you know about him has to speak through the car that he is sitting in.&amp;quot; The coupe&amp;#039;s sheer size\u201425 feet long and 8 feet wide\u2014helps; so do the slit masks over the headlights, a popular feature in military vehicles at the time. &amp;quot;If you squint your eyes a little bit, every car has a face and those masks helped a lot,&amp;quot; Simon says. &amp;quot;I think if the villain doesn&amp;#039;t show up in something that has 50 million guns all over it, but something that is almost beautiful, that can be even more menacing.&amp;quot; Plus, it&amp;#039;s plenty powerful: Simon imagined that the car would have the most powerful engine available at the time\u2014a 16-cylinder aircraft engine. &amp;quot;The real car has nine exhausts on either side which would make it an 18-cylinder,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;But on airplanes back then, they actually used the exhaust gases as additional exhilaration power. I thought this could also be a cool feature on this vehicle\u2014a boost for additional miles per hour.&amp;quot; The car&amp;#039;s classic exterior also masks a futuristic interior installed by HYDRA. The coupe also has state-of-the-art radio technology, toolboxes for futuristic gadgets and an extra engine in the back. &amp;quot;The vehicle is very advanced under the skin with all this technology, but style-wise, we wanted to give him something classy,&amp;quot; Simon says. &amp;quot;He has so much other futuristic stuff going in the Hydra division. It&amp;#039;s a grounding thing.&amp;quot; Finally, Captain America is no Tron: Legacy: Unlike the cars Simon designed for that film, which were digital effects in a digital universe, Schmidt&amp;#039;s car actually had to be built, and it had to work. That job fell to a team U.K.-based Shepardson Studios, who purchased a truck chassis and heavily modified it for Schmidt&amp;#039;s coupe. The body was built of fiberglass, and the vehicle was equipped with suicide doors, which hinge in the back. &amp;quot;We couldn&amp;#039;t just take a good looking car and scale it up that size that we have, because that would make the person next to it look very small,&amp;quot; Simon says. &amp;quot;It was completely designed from scratch. There&amp;#039;s... nothing on it that was stolen or taken from an existing vehicle.&amp;quot; And unlike other vehicles in movies, there were no compromises. The coupe was built exactly to the design, &amp;quot;down to the inch,&amp;quot; Simon says. While the designer did get to visit the set and see his creation fully realized, he didn&amp;#039;t get to drive it. &amp;quot;I was allowed to inside of it, and they let me turn the keys,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;But it was inside the studio lot, and the real car has a 700 horsepower Drexler engine in it, to just move that massive thing. So if you moved it in a set, the set would probably be congested with exhaust and gases in probably ten seconds.&amp;quot; Johnston, however, did get behind the wheel. &amp;quot;I drove it myself and it has about a 38-foot turning radius,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;So it&amp;#039;s not a lot of fun to drive. But it looked fantastic. Just a beautiful car.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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