9 tuning titans you need to remember

1. Ruf CTR ‘Yellowbird’

We can argue this way and that but I don’t think there’s much getting around it. RUF is the daddy, the original gangster, of hair-brained tuning. Everyone’s seen ‘Faszination on the Nürburgring’. Everyone knows the iconic ‘Yellowbird’. But even today, the specs bare reading and disbelieving. 

The official power figure of 469PS (345kW) from the bored-out, twin-turbocharged 3.4-litre engine – itself a spectacular number for 1987 – has long been thought to be conservative. Many of the original cars have been verified with over 500PS. Then you look at the performance. How about 0-60mph in 3.65 seconds, a top speed of 213mph – and those are from magazine tests, not privately-conducted manufacturer tests. The Yellowbird obliterated everyone and cemented RUF as a tuning icon and that’s to say nothing of the many many other glorious cars Alois and Co’ put together over the years.

2. Koenig Competition Evolution

Right alongside RUF in the peak German tuning titans era, was Koenig specials. Yet by comparison, it seems they were even more nutty, if not quite so verifiable in their engineering prowess. Hypercars didn’t really exist in the ‘80s but there was certainly the kind of money and bloated egos that would have paid for them. So it was to Koenig you went to with your common-as-muck Testarossa for some stick-on fibreglass, a 1,000PS twin-turbo kit and a brass knuckle with which to fight off the angry spectre of Enzo Ferrari and his gang of assassins. That car could do 230mph. Because, you know, the F40 is famously slow and tame. Of course, if you didn’t fancy the full four-figure punch, an 800PS cabrio was offered. Yes, Koenig would offer to hack the roof off your Testarossa to create an open-top. Ferrari never did that with the standard 390PS car for fears about structural rigidity.

Koenig did similarly nutty things (though none quite as drastic) with other Ferraris – it even twin-turboed an F50, for goodness sake – Porsches and Mercedes, being as it was the ultimate cover-all proprietor of performance and polarising aesthetics. Today, next to the likes of Mansory, these things look utterly awesome. And lord knows, when they’re running right, they go like stink.

3. Gemballa Avalanche

It’s 1988. You’re loaded, you want everyone to know it and your mind is in an, ahem, altered state, thanks to some non-prescription medication. You love 911s but RUF is just a little too restrained for your taste. You want something with a bit more mouth, to go with the trousers. It’s not long before you discover Uwe Gemballa and his astonishing outfit, that could at your behest and once the substantial cheque cleared, supply you with a dramatic-looking 911-based machine to make a 935 K3 blush.

Gemballa was a bit mad but a latter-era coach builder nonetheless whose creations while outlandish at the time, have stood the test of time. He worked his magic to create an SEC Gullwing, the insane Avalanche you see above and many more mad machines besides. Gemballa actually survived in its original form into the 2000s, modifying numerous Porsches, among other supercars and even the mad Carrera GT-based Mirage GT. Its disbandment and Uwe Gemballa’s untimely passing is a story for another time…

4. Callaway Sledgehammer

Moving out of Germany, across the Atlantic to America and the 1980s were something of a power vacuum. Literally, there was no horsepower, thanks to emissions and smog regulations, where once monster V8s sent iconic pony cars between the lights in a plume of tyre smoke.

Enter Reeves Callaway, an engineer and racer who developed a penchant for power generation and perhaps inevitably, turbocharging. After BMWs, VWs, Porsches, Audis, Mercedes and even Alfa Romeos, Callaway’s legacy was cemented with a Corvette. Called the Sledgehammer, Callaway’s twin-turboed 880PS engine weaponised the C4 Corvette shape for a frankly inconceivable-in-1988 255mph top speed. This car is an icon of automotive terminal velocity. Callaway’s next job? Developing Aston Martin’s V8 for road and racing. Based on that Corvette, you’d’ve hired him too…

5. Hennessey Venom 650R

Before Hennessey built hypercars, he was a tuner. Following his own crack at Pikes Peak, he followed the lead of Callaway, Lingenfelter and Co’ by turning up the wick, tuning people’s cars. Perhaps his most famous subject? The Dodge Viper. This wasn’t a car thought to be slow, under-engined or underpowered at the time. But some people just won’t be sated. And so the HPE Venom 650R was born, a 650PS 8.4-litre Viper with fully revised internals and bolt-ons. It managed 0-60mph in 3.3 seconds and could crack a top speed of 215mph. Looking at all these, we wonder how Jaguar actually failed to hit 220mph in the XJ220.

What started with a Mitsubishi 3000GT on Pikes Peak is presently going very well for Hennessey, with the 300mph+ Venom F5 a sold-out milti-million-dollar hypercar. Heck.

6. Top Secret Supra

Going into the 1990s Japanese cars and their tuners began to conquer the world. One of the great and powerful Japanese tuning names that has endured throughout the years is Top Secret, for what it built and… for what its cars did. The man behind Top Secret is Kazuhiko “Smokey” Nagata and he’s not your average motoring figurehead. Do you see Gerry McGovern taking F-Types for 200mph top speed runs down the A1? No. But Smokey did just that – after a lengthy journey with his special Supra from Japan – in 1998.

The Supras Top Secret have built are legendary, competing in numerous speed challenges and performing many illegal speed runs. From the A1, to the Autobahn, to runways, to the Nardo Ring, it’s been Smokey’s will to demonstrate just how fast these cars can go, illegally or legally. While the car famous for the ‘Midnight 200mph blast’ videos used a highly-tuned RB26, the car pictured here actually has an incredible Toyota V12 engine from a Century. For its performance and style, Top Secret is a household name of tuning, from drifting to drag racing.

7. Spoon Sports Honda Civic 11k

Spoon Sports holds a similar esteem among JDM enthusiasts for the insane things it’s managed to make Hondas and Honda engines do over the years. In 2024 we marvel at multi-million-pound hypercars revving to over 11,000rpm. Spoon did that with a version of Honda’s B16B back in the 1990s…

Of course Spoon Sports will be recognisable for the Gran Turismo generation as the builder and racer of incredible Honda racing cars. Spoon-built cars have competed throughout Japan and beyond, even gracing the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

8. Mine’s Nissan Skyline GT-R R34

We’re not here to name definitively what the greatest tuned Skyline R34 street car of all time is. That said, within what would be a lengthy conversation, the Mine’s R34 is at the very least near the top of the list. As Players of early Gran Turismo should know.

And quite unlike many cars on this list, it somewhat flies under the radar. Yes, you have the wheels and the livery and the slightly blistered look of a Skyline that’s been breathed on but underneath, it’s a different animal. Featuring the entire catalogue of Mine’s chassis and engine upgrades, this car is built to take on the Tsukuba circuit for a sub-one-minute one-lap attack. For context, you’ll struggle to do that in a McLaren Senna.

9. Underground Racing Lamborghini Gallardo

A final mention goes to Underground Racing and its incredible Gallardo. Arguably one of the first supercar darlings of the YouTube era, UGR Gallardos went the equivalent of viral in the 2000s on the video platform, highway racing, spitting out flames and embarrassing the then-new Bugatti Veyron point-to-point.

UGR arguably picked up where Koenig Competition left off and were part of the floodgates reopening to exotic car enhancement and modification. Today it builds Huracans, R8s, Aventadors and more, with a UGR-built Huracan hitting 259mph in a half-mile run.

Honourable mentions

Now we have to throw in some honourable mentions. Heffner for example can be mentioned in the same breath as UGR. Liberty Walk, Veilside, Dimma and so on, create amazing machines but perhaps aren’t tuners in the same sense. Likewise, Brabus is probably a little too mainstream, lacking the definitive poster car that defines many of these companies. Amuse, Tom’s, Tommy Kaira, RE-Amemiya and more – there are too many to name – are similarly legendary Japanese names to the ones above. 

Across the pond Saleen, Roush and Lingenfelter also all did incredible things with Mustangs and Corvettes. And finally one to watch today in the exotic car space is Gintani, which has gone viral over the last couple of years for the way it’s been able to make Aventadors sound. Not quiet cars to begin with but these are something else.

So that’s our list of tuning titans. Let us know if we've missed any and whether we should do a sequel list dedicated to the above mentions, or any you think we've missed...