One of the main reasons I attended the Tuning World Bodensee event was to meet up with Bene Janssen from Japo Motorsport. I had been talking with him through email and he was the one that invited me to come to the show. You may remember his replica Z-tune R34. Well let me tell that when you are confronted with that machine in the flesh it just blows you away.
But Bene had some more surprises for me in store, like this EVO IX GSR in full Time Attack mode.
This R34 is Bene’s personal ride that he uses for occasional track days and for those late night autobahn adventures. It is a really stunning machine that I will check out more closely when I will visit Japo Motorsports at the end of June.
You can check out a full feature on Speedhunters right here.
But the R34 wasn’t the car that got the most attention. It was this EVO IX GSR that had a full Varis wide body kit and lots of carbon stuff like the doors.
Remember the screws on the R34? Well Bene did the same on this EVO, everything had been bolted with these anodized bolts and washers.
The frontbumper had been adorned with more carbon parts like the canards and airduct inserts.
These SSR Type F wheels in 18″x10.5 looked spot on. They were wrapped in Toyo R888 just like the ones on the R34 Skyline. And again you can see the anodized screws holding the carbon sideskirt.
I could get a sneak peek of the engine through the vents. It had been built in partnership with Cosworth. They enlarged the displacement to 2.2 liter and replaced the turbo. This is of course a small part of what they actually did to the engine to reach the 780bhp and 665Nm it has now.
The interior looked absolutely stunning with all the carbon bits like the dashboard, door cards and the carbon shifter. I’ll be reviewing the interior in more detail when I will make a full feature about this car.
Another car that Japo had on their stand was this S2000 with lots of carbon goodies and yellow headlights. I would love to take this car onto the track and see what is capable of.
The carbon pieces looked flawless and matched perfectly.
Lets have a look at some more cars at the show and close my coverage of the Tuning World Bodensee.
The wrapping of cars was very popular. I saw several wraps being applied to cars at the show.
This BMW 135 had been tuned by Kerscher.
I’m in a dilemma right now because I’m not sure if I should turn this car into a feature. I’ll let you decide, so please let me know in the comments if you want to see more of this car.
The racing version of the Fiat 500 also made an appearance on the Abarth stand.
One of many clean mk1’s at the show. This is how I like these cars the best. Rollcage, stripped interior, perfect stance and cool wheels.
A true gangster Mercedes with BBS mesh wheels. Not sure if the owner was a pirate but there was a small treasure chest in front of the car. Some of the car owners went to great lengths to spice up their stand.
Blacked out rear lights a healthy drop and four chrome exhaust tips, what more do you need?
The BBS wheels are a perfect match, I also loved the wooden Nardi steering wheel.
I hope you enjoyed my coverage of the Tuning World Bodensee, I will be back next year.
-Jeroen Willemsen