London Concours 2026: The Tuners

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Personalisation is a huge part of car culture and has been since the early days of motoring.

Back then, if you were a wealthy individual, you could buy a chassis and running gear from, say Bentley then have it sent off to a coachbuilder to have a unique body built for it.

Obviously the way cars have been produced has changed (most notably with the adaption of monocoque construction) so fully coachbuilt cars are now largly a thing of the distant past, but the desire of people to have something truly unique still exists. Thankfully there are still businesses comprised of talented craftsman and artisans who want to make people’s automotive dreams a reality.

This class is a celebration of those businesses.

We’ll start with Koenig.

Koenig is a German tuning company based in Munich. They are most known for building late 1980s and early 1990s Mercedes and Ferraris such as the Testarossa and 308 below (Look at how deep the dish is in the 308! That’s a very Koenig touch. I’ve seen a Koenig 560SEC with similarly deep wheels)

Germany is a bit of a hotspot for tuning companies. Alpina are now a part of BMW but for most of their history were an independent tuning company and race team.

The B7S, based on the E12 5-Series was claimed to be the fastest saloon car of its day with a top speed of 163mph.

60 were built and most were finished, as this one is, in Dunkelsaphirblau (Dark Sapphire Blue) with gold decals. I think it’s a wonderful spec!

AC Schnitzer are another BMW focused tuning brand. They built full cars like the E36 below but also made lots of off the shelf products for customers. Sadly they are due to cease operations in 2027 due to financial issues.

Like Alpina is with BMW, AMG are now a part of Mercedes but started out as an independent unit.

This is the monstrous SL73 AMG based on the R129 SL600. It features the largest engine ever fitted to a Mercedes – a 7.3ltr V12.

A W124 300TE 24v by Brabus.

There were two Jaguar XJS’ The first is a Lister Le Mans. This is a bit of an animal – It’s powered by a 7.0ltr twin supercharged V12 making over 600hp and will propel this widebodied grand tourer to over 200mph.

The second was a JaguarSport – a collaboration between Jaguar and Tom Walkinshaw Racing, who built the famous Jaguar Group-C Le Mans cars.

Finally we come to Wood & Pickett who are a name most associated with coachbuilt Mini Margaves, which were owned by the rich and famous of 1960s London including Elton John, Twiggy and Mick Jagger.

They also built several of these Range Rover cabriolets. This one was originally built for a Middle Eastern royal family.