You have seen the good ones, now it is time for a showdown with the badest and meanest. The EMS brings together all kinds of sports, from gigantic tractor pulling to classic car racing. Remember ESPN 8, the Ocho from Dodgeball? (“If it’s almost a sport, we’ve got it here”)…
Tractor pulling, classic touring car, motorboats and bigfoot trucks… EMS offers unrivalled diversity, and the colourful tuning scene adds a few interesting specimens to the list. Again, we aim at a balanced offering: you will get classics, racing prowess and sheer insanity alike.
10. Tractor pulling – your lawnmower on lots of steroids!
Are you having trouble with the jungle growing in your backyard? How about this 6000PS monster melting together a bunch of WWII V12 aeroplane engines?
If your garage is a little low on crazy, this genetically manipulated lawnmower will earn some respect for you in the neighbourhood…
9. The Brabus Crawler is a 900 HP off-road monster
If your partial bridge G class is just too nimble, Brabus got an even crazier car for you.
The “thing” is powered by a twin-turbo 4.5-litre V8 engine deriving from the AMG 63 version, producing a total output is 900 HP, moving a car that is built for extreme lightweight.
8. Bigfoot trucks – need I say more?
These guys are actually from Sweden (see their website), making a detour to Essen. I guess, there is a lot to compensate for the safe Volvos over there 😊.
7. Porsche 911Syberia RS
This car is (or used to be… ) a 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera RS revamped by German tuner H&R. to honour the desert Rallye-Porsches of the ‘80s.
And they did a thorough revamping, giving it a custom suspension and all-wheel-drive system. The result is truly spectacular: the 45-year-old car stole the show, even from a brand new AMG V8 with fancy decoration parked right next to it.
6. Red Bull van
This is an old friend from previous car shows, including EMS 2021. This car pulls attention like nothing else in Red Bull’s fleet.
The van is based on a Land Rover Defender 130, and features a fully-fledged built-in DC centre with a turntable and massive blasters.
5. Off-road Dakar monster that may contain Mini
This car has very little to do with an actual Mini, but for that, these cars won the Dakar Rallye in 2020 (Sainz) and 2021 (Peterhansel).
These cars have been operated by the German X-raid racing team since 2018. Officially called Mini John Cooper Works Buggy, they relied on a BMW B57 inline six-cylinder engine.
4. BMW E9 Batmobile driven by a Bavarian prince
Prince Leopold of Bavaria is a member of the Bavarian royal house of Wittelsbach and a former champion race car driver (also known as “Poldi”).
Of course, with that name, he was destined to drive for BMW, and so it happened eventually. Prince Leopold started his racing career in 1969 in touring car racing, winning the North American Championships with Porsche in 1972. In 1984 he entered Le Mans, finishing fourth. In 1986, Leopold became a factory driver for BMW, and after 1998, he remained with the team as an adviser.
3. Apollo Intensa Emozione – the bloodred wraith from another dimension
Our first contact with this car was its sibling, the De Tomaso P72. That car is one of the most spectacular cars we have ever seen, and we were wondering what car donated the P72 its technical platform.
The Apollo Intensa Emozione is a mid-engine sports car manufactured by German automobile manufacturer Apollo Automobil. Apollo and the new De Tomaso are owned by the same Hong Kong-based company. If we have to name another relative of the Intensa, it would be none less than the Ferrari Enzo. The car uses a Ferrari-derived 6.3-litre naturally-aspirated V12, peaking at 780 hp at 8,500 rpm with a reported redline of 9,000 rpm.
2. Nothing transpires road presence like the Bundeswehr
Our age and wisdom drove us past road rage and highway duels a long time ago, but road presence is still a recurring theme at tuning shows. Tuners make cars wider, lower, using aggressive paint jobs and lots of tricks to make them look more aggressive.
Every year, the Bundeswehr teaches a painful lesson to tuners about road presence by invading the halls of Essen with a military vehicle that steals the show. We commonly use the word “tank” for everything from Abrahms to Volvo 740, so it’s better to set things straight. Not every large and shielded military vehicle is a tank. Each year the Bundeswehr brings a different vehicle, like the PZH2000 howitzer last year, which is not a tank in the strictest sense.
Well, this year, they brought a king of tanks, the main battle tank Leopard 2 A6 A1. MBTs are tanks in the truest sense of the word. MBTs, are the alpha males of modern land warfare, filling the role of armour-protected direct fire and manoeuvre in many modern armies. In plain English, these were the fists of any attack, as long as the sky was clear. Since the vicious war in Ukraine, the undisputed status of tanks is changing, but it’s too early to see where things develop. What changed forever is how we see these mastodons when showcased at car shows.
Last year’s exhibit, the PZH2000 howitzer, is now actively used by the Ukrainian army, but as far as tanks are concerned, they still use soviet era vehicles. This year’s show vehicle is possibly Germany’s next export success, the Leopard 2 A6 A1. The Leopard 2 first entered service in 1979 and was thoroughly revamped several times. Its seven generations served in the German armed forces and 13 other countries. It was used in active war zones in Kosovo and Syria. Its latest iteration is probably the next best thing to the over-the-top Abrams.
1. Historical Lotus race cars: when quality meets quantity
Chrome Cars used the first exhibitor area by the entrance for a show dedicated to the racing history of Britain’s iconic Lotus brand. The road cars were already featured in our good car segment. Now it’s time to meet the race cars.
And Chrome Cars outdid itself by showcasing an outstanding selection with several F1 cars from the ’70s and ’80s. These include a 1974 Lotus 76, a 1980 Lotus 81, a 1981 Lotus 87, a 1983 Lotus 92, and a 1983 Lotus 94T all in the iconic gold on black John Player Special livery.
Race cars include a Roush Trans-Am Mustang from 1985, a 1990 Norton F1 JPS bike, a Lotus Type 110 bicycle from 1994, a Lotus LMP2 race car from the 2012 season and a Lotus Motorcycle from 2014.
Again we take a rhetorical break but will be back with the ugliest cars from EMS.
