The Legend of Koenig-Specials
Ferrari makes some pretty mental cars by themselves, but standard Ferrari creations pale in comparison to the cars built by Willy König. König made his money publishing magazines and then decided to go racing. When he got out of racing, he bought a Ferrari 356 GT4BB but wasn’t the biggest fan of the way it performed. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and thus Koenig Specials was born, his very own tuning house.
Koenig Specials
(via Autoblog.nl)
One of the most impressive Koenig cars was the Koenig Special Testarossa. The first Koenig modified Testarossa was unveiled at the 1985 Frankfurt Motor Show. The standard Testarossa made around 385 horsepower, a pretty respectable number for the mid-80s, but for Mr König it would not do. The car unveiled at Frankfurt made a glorious 710bhp. It featured an F40-esque rear wing and immensely wide wheels and tires to handle the increased power output. 3 years down the line, Mr König decided that his “measly” 710hp was simply not enough, and came out with a “Competition” version that put out an even more glorious 800bhp and even had a gorgeous drop-top version. The Competition could do 217 mph, this would probably be enough to make most people soil themselves. But yet again, Mr König being the man that he is, decided that it wasn’t enough.
Koenig Special Testarossa
(via TopGear)
Now this is the car I’m most excited to talk about. The Competition Evolution. This face-bending, tire-shredding, autobahn-crushing monster was making power well into the four figures, and flat out would go on to hit 230mph. That’s 20 mph faster than a Mercedes-Mclaren SLR. Mental. One thing I especially love about this car is that you didn’t really have to give up creature comforts for this kind of performance. In fact, you could have the car fitted with a 16 speaker, 1000W Kenwood stereo. I’m sure you don’t need to know too much about sound systems to infer that it’s absolutely bonkers. Now as far as I can see from my (extremely fun) research, there’s only one drawback to this car. The price. $600,000 USD in 1980s money. Adjust that for inflation and you’re looking at a car that costs upwards of 1.2 million dollars.
The Competition Evolution
(via supercars.net)
But let’s ignore the price for a moment, just imagine blasting past everyone on the autobahn at speeds well in excess of 200 mph and making your passenger go deaf to the soundtrack of that twin-turbo flat 12 and your bangin’ Kenwood stereo. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Not to old man Ferrari. Enzo Ferrari was not a fan of Mr König’s work and sent a legal notice to Koenig threatening to sue them if they did not remove all Ferrari badges on the car. Koenig had a pretty impressive clientele as you can imagine, Sylvester Stallone (allegedly) had a blue Koenig modified Testarossa with twin turbos. I’ll have ask Mr Stallone himself to confirm this someday.
Maybe Stallone’s car?
(via supercarnostalgia.com)
Koenig was part of the big tuner house movement that took over Germany in the 80s along with the likes of Brabus or Gemballa but in my opinion, the most insane tuned cars came from the mind of the one and only Willy König. It is unclear if Koenig-Specials still exists today with the name being misused by various imposters, but one thing is for sure, it’ll take a proper madman to replicate even a fraction of the original from its day.
