Last weekend we visited the Essen Motor Show, and again we left with a rather extreme experience.
EMS is quite an unusual exhibition for those who are used to the likes of IAA and the Paris Car Show. It’s nowhere near as flashy, but for that, it offers something for everyone. The Show usually works as a regional classic car show, but mostly, it is an action-packed tuning show and sports car exhibition with a touch of new car section.
The Show offers an extreme variety: rare classics that take your breath away, while some tunings will leave you speechless and in shock and awe. In the following segments, we gathered our favourite hundred cars, grouped under themes in the spirit of old westerns: the good, the bad and the butt ugly. We strived to offer you a balanced selection covering all segments and brands, from classics, through exotics, and supercars down to race cars and tuning.
The good ones from Essen
Below, you will find twelve cars we cherished for their excellent implementation. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so this list is very subjective. We also tried to offer a balanced selection, so you will find modern street-style tuning and elegant classics alike. Obviously, we never quite liked the torture chambers of tuning, but we managed to find two for this list.
12. The Supra Dragon – Toyota Supra 2.0 MK5 –
This Toyota Supra car is relatively unmolested (by EMS standards 😊 ), and the exterior’s styling is well done. The street-style livery corresponds to the slammed black rims, so a pleasing composition that we could include in our list of Art Cars.
11. Nissan Sunny Truck GTR
The usual tuning toolkit hardly produces beauties, and even the best restomod classics look when slammed. It’s not easy to produce a tuning that meets our expectations, but this car has it all. A rare JDM underdog (we would never receive so well a tuned Caddy, and I am sure they tried here).
So this one is a rare JDM car, in top condition, and most importantly: not overdone. The simple white bodywork offered a proper context to the engine, highlighted by the red metallic cover. Apart from the discrete GTR badge, the car is so understated that it even tolerates the slamming.
10. 1993 VW Golf Art Car by Fischer Art
We have a fable for Art Cars, and this one is quite an excellent specimen. The creation is more recent (from 2007), but it’s a rolling art we would enjoy in our living room.
9. JB Design 911 Turbo race car with Martini livery
Porsche 911 specimen constitute the backbone of each car show in Essen. This classic race car indeed made our hearts beat faster.
8. Opel Manta Manta
No, we are not stuttering, this car makes reference to a German movie Manta Manta from the late ’80s. Readers from Germany will remember the car (geek) movie Manta Manta that kickstarted Til Schweiger’s career. For some years, he was the point of reference for a silent German bad guy if you could not get Jürgen Prochnow 😊.
This 1983 Opel Manta GT was driven by Til Schweiger, whose career received a much better boost from the movie than Opel’s new car sales. This Opel was clearly pimped outside, but it also received a race car engine (at least according to the story).
7. Groovy VW Buzz Unlimited
VW’s Buzz is a brand new model, something that was teased for years, and now has a good chance to harvest VW’s next car of the year title.
6. Honda NSX – when less is more
Honda’s first high-end sportscar left lasting memories in automotive history. This car pays homage the best way: but not messing with it. Most of the interventions aimed at maintaining the car’s grace.
The golden rims were the most apparent but did not ruin the car’s appearance.
5. LCE’s Turbomonster is a Restomod Audi Quattro with a monstrous 1000PS.
In 2020, LCE Performance unveiled a fairly modded version of Audi’s iconic homologation car, the Sport Quattro.
The road-legal weapon peaks at 1.081 HP, but LCE offers faithful replicas with a performance of up to 650 HP.
We particularly appreciated the reserved lining of the car, the disproportionately short chassis already prepares road traffic for what is coming, and there is no need for unnecessary roughness.
4. Lotus
Chrome Cars is a stable participant in every Show in Essen, they were a major exhibitor last year. They took the first exhibitor area by the entrance and used it for a show dedicated to the racing history of Britain’s iconic Lotus brand.
In the beauty segment, we only count the road-legal cars, and our favourites are the two Lotus Espirits (from 1980) with the JPS livery.
We also liked the Ford Capri MkII JPS from 1975 and the Lotus Exige Type 79 from 2017, but there is nothing like a showroom shine Espirit.
Chrome Cars also showcased a bunch of race cars, and you will hear from them in the next segment.
3. SIIND’s 911 leaves minimal compromise when it comes to the livery
If you can’t decide which livery you want to wear from Porsche’s illustrious racing history, here is one from Sydney Industries that got them all!
If you find all the legendary racing liveries, feel free to post them. For us, it was one of the best easter egg hunting of the day.
2. Gullwing
Gullwings are mandatory elements of any car show in Essen, and 2022 was no exception. This year was also special, as the Classic & Prestige Salon (the organiser SEHA’s booth) commemorated 70 years of the Mercedes-Benz SL, as the series first appeared in sports car races in 1952.
Of course, it was not the only 300SL exhibited, but this was the best staged, best-kept specimen.
1. An Audi Quattro to commemorate a German racing legend
The Technik Museum Speyer-Sinsheim is a regular guest at the Essen Motor Show, and this time though, brought two cars to introduce their upcoming exhibitions.
Their ongoing temporary exhibition is dedicated to two-time Rallye champion Walter Röhrl, and the Museum brought along a Rally Quattro.
Here we take a rhetorical break, and you will see we left plenty of firecrackers for the coming weeks.
