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Ridiculously Awesome:
’80s Tuner & Specialty Cars

October 26, 2011 by Matt

Gemballa Avalanche 911 Tuner Car 80s Black

I absolutely guarantee you that if I had known about any of these cars in the ’80s, a poster of one would have been immediately fixed to my bedroom wall. Forget that white Lamborghini Countach garbage; the customized German and Italian beauties featured on this site are where it’s at.

Or was at. The site is fascinating as a time capsule of ’80s car fashion as much as it is a showcase of the customizers’ talents. Tire and wheel technology being far less advanced than it is today, relatively small-diameter but massively wide tires steamroll underneath grotesquely swollen wide-body conversions. Most colors have a pastel or day-glo quality, and any additional electronics look like they were lifted from a Radio Shack catalog circa 1985.

300E W124 Mercedes Benz Merc M-B Hammer Red AMG

That said, the highlights of the site’s “collection” are too numerous to list in a concise manner, so I’ll just call out a few. The AMG 300E “Hammer” shown above is noteworthy for the “period” model selected to pose with the car. The Koenig and Gemballa Testarossas arguably improve on the stock car’s lines by getting rid of the side vents’ strakes. The Porsche 930-based Gemballa Avalanche (shown at top) and Mirage are awesome to behold, and the rainbow-pattern on the Buchmann 928 Targa’s seats is a nice touch, as are the location of the stereo controls (!).

BMW ABC Exclusive E24 635 635CSi Convertible Vert Cabriolet Cabrio Droptop

As a former BMW E24 6-series owner, I was particularly drawn to the ABC Exclusive E24 convertible. It’s so well done and the car looks so sleek it makes me wonder why BMW didn’t contemplate a factory version.

Filed under: Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Mercedes, Miscellaneous, Porsche

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