Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Crazy tuner mods didn’t stop in the 1980s….no, not by a long shot. Alive and well, they’ve continued on through today with deep pockets attempting to make expensive cars more expensive, unique, and…well, you can be the judge. I spotted this unusual widebody duo several months ago and have been waiting for them to disappear. Strangely, they haven’t sold. Is it the price? The looks? The…price? Or, is it the looks? Let’s dive in…
If you wanted a crazy modified European car in the 80s, you had a lot of choices to make. Built to resemble wildly flared racers, cars from manufacturers like DP Motorsports, Gemballa and Strosek are at best polarizing cars. At worst, they’re like the plot line to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex; kill your father, marry your mother and have your sister-daughters, then stab your eyes out and live in a cave. But the Rex himself must certainly be defined as Willy König, with his widebody, Testarossa-straked creations. While usually we see Mercedes-Benz and Porsche versions of Koenig modified cars, today we get a rare glimpse of what he’d do to a E24.
Back when the metal was heavy and the hair was high, the cars of Willy König ruled the earth. Koenig Specials GmbH was a German tuning house that took already outrageous cars on their own from Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz and turned them up to 11. Unlike the majority of the tuning houses and coachbuilders from the same era, Koeing made cars that matched their bark with an even bigger bite. In addition to outlandish body work and 13 inch wide wheels, Koenig had a tradition of twin-turbocharging cars that made some of them capable of 200 mph and 0-60 runs under 4 seconds. One very special Ferrari Testarossa that was built by Koenig produced 1,000 hp and recorded a top speed of 229 mph. Today, these cars are still admired and now that everything from the 1980s is cool and very collectible. That is what we have with this car today.
This is a 1986 Mercedes-Benz 500SEC that received the full Koenig treatment including a twin-turbo kit on the M117 V8. It has a body kit that only the Batmoblie rivals and wheels deep enough to cook chicken soup in. Inside, Recaro C Classic seats only begin the wildness with a second gauge cluster added on the dash and enough wood for a dining room table. I rarely see these Koenig Specials come up for sale and this example in Canada is already pulling in big bids. How high will it go?
The ’70s and ’80s certainly possessed their own sense of style and few things make that more clear than when we look at tuners who were popular during those eras. Not all were so crazy. Looking at a few RUF models we can see that they were content to retain the general style of Porsche themselves, though in fairness a 930 isn’t exactly a shrinking violet. But here our attention will be on the other tuners; the tuners who delighted in bringing their own sense of audacity to the automobile market. Koenig Specials is one such tuner and though they’ve been around for four decades now I think most of us would be familiar with them from their earlier years when they produced complete packages to transform both the appearance and the performance of many cars. On these pages we’re most familiar with them for their work with Mercedes-Benz, but there are a few rare Porsches floating around as well. One of those is the one we see here: a Koenig Specials modified 1991 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Coupe with a mere 19K kilometers on it. It is said that only eight such examples were built, making this a very rare commodity on the 911 market.
Far, far on the other end of the tuning spectrum from the Dinan M5 of this morning are the ‘all show, no go’ scene cars. Built to resemble wildly flared racers, cars from manufacturers like DP Motorsports, Gemballa and Strosek are at best polarizing cars. At worst, they’re like the plot line to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex; kill your father, marry your mother and have your sister-daughters, then stab your eyes out and live in a cave. But the Rex himself must certainly be defined as Walter Koenig, with his widebody, Testarossa-straked creations. While usually we see Mercedes-Benz and Porsche versions of Koenig modified cars, today we get a rare glimpse of what he’d do to a E30. And, only a glimpse…
