KOENIG-SPECIAL · 306 RALLYE · TIMELINE
We track down an Eighties-tastic Testarossa to tell the story of the wildest tuner of them all, KOENIG-SPECIALS
We meet the man behind some of the Eighties most outrageous cars. Plus, a bouncingly brief history of suspension
It was meant to be simple. Park a red wedge in the middle of Tokyo for a few photos. Tell the tale of one of the maddest tuners to ever exist. Leave. But what I appear to have done is take a Stanley knife to the cultural fabric of Japan. The locals are doing something they never do: reacting. Stopping, staring, even cracking out their phones for a selfie – it’s all very un-Japanese. And it’s not because some lanky Westerner is doing a really bad job of dressing up as James “Sonny” Crockett. No, they’re befuddled by what’s in front of them: the visual embodiment of the Eighties, a widebody KOENIG-SPECIALS Ferrari Testarossa.
Quite right too – it’s utterly outrageous. Garnished with all the excessive period trimmings (twin-turbos, red leather, crazy speakers, white dials, a boost knob and pop-up headlights) it couldn’t get more Eighties if I sparked up the flat-12 engine and fired prawn cocktails out of the exhausts. Either way, the locals are losing their sake-soaked minds. Proof, if anything, that we should stuff some shoulder pads under our proverbial jackets and celebrate the wild time of one man: Willy König.
See, 40 years ago, people were cash-rich and carefree – a perfect recipe for the burgeoning tuning labs in Germany. Being home to the likes of AMG, RUF, Gemballa, Boschert and Treser, when it came to modified cars, the loosest of loose cannons came from Germany. No one embraced the excessiveness of the Eighties quite like Willy.
He was a publishing magnate and dab hand behind the wheel having started his racing career in secrecy (using the alias Robert Frank) aged 17, by borrowing
“NO ONE EMBRACED THE EXCESSIVENESS OF THE EIGHTIES QUITE LIKE WILLY”
his mother’s Ford Taunus 12M. She was under the impression that he was going away for weekend trips, but in reality, Willy was secretly fanging her car around in rallies and hillclimbs. Well, until his cover was blown by a local newspaper publishing a story on him coming first in a race. I mean... weekend trip away. But that was too late, his racing career had already started to snowball and over the years Willy piloted a lottery-winning list of race cars including a Ferrari 275 GTB, Ford GT40, Lola T70, BMW M1 Procar and Porsche 962. He even won the German Spezial-Tourenwagen-Trophy in a Porsche 935K… only to later drop a Porsche 962 engine in it and crash at the Nürburgring. But, as you’ll find out, this speaks volumes about his mentality.
In 1962, having won the German Hillclimb Championship behind the wheel of a Ferrari 250 GT
SWB Berlinetta, he caught the attention of none other than Enzo Ferrari. Impressed by Willy’s performance, Ferrari’s chief invited him to an event held in his honour at Maranello. But where most people would tread on eggshells around il Commendatore, Willy didn’t mind ruffling a few of Ferrari’s feathers. Specifically, when his Ferrari 365 BB arrived.
It was the first in Germany, but Willy didn’t like it. It wasn’t raw enough, didn’t sound good enough and wasn’t fast enough. So, harnessing all of his track expertise and crazy chutzpah, he had a crack at making it better himself. He turbocharged the flat-12 engine to give it 450bhp, shod it with better rubber, gave it motorsport suspension, then cloaked it in a wider and wingier bodykit. People laughed, the Tifosi sneered, but when folks saw just how fast it went