Essen is one of the largest motor shows for the perfromance sector in Europe, held in the first week of December each year at the Messe Essen Centre and covering ten separate halls. This year we took the opportunity to visit the show to find out how the performance market in Germany differs to the UK.
Koni had an impressive spacious stand featuring three cars and a wide range of Koni road and racing products.
Fitted to a nice black Golf GTI Clubsport and on display was the new Koni trackday kit, these are based on the very successful 2812 series double adjustable race dampers, which uses cartridge systems for adjustment instead of the more commonly used needle valves, resulting in a wide range of 64 predefined damping curves. These kits also included H&R main and helper springs, which can of course be easily changed for different rate springs, and of course adjustable top camber plates.
The stand also featured a nice old classic Opel Kadett coupe, these are becoming more popular as classic cars in Europe and therefore more valuable. Koni recently re-introduced yellow sport dampers for this model, and they are proving to be a popular addition to the range.
The final vehicle was a Mercedes AMG A45, tuned to over 470BHP and retro- fitted with development Koni Sport dampers and H&R springs to increase the comfort and the grip level.
We also spotted some other interesting vehicles, among them was a McLaren 675 wearing a metallic orange wrap, and a 1989 Ferrari F40, which when it left the factory would have been fitted with OE Koni shock and would have been red, this one has been re sprayed in blue, I will leave you to make up your own minds about that!
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