Essen Motor Show 2025: Best Builds, Tuning Highlights & Hall-by-Hall Guide

Essen Motor Show (EMS) is arguably the most impressive indoor car event in Europe, with a crazy variety of vendors and show cars on display. It’s one of my favourite shows to attend, but for 2025 we had a real veteran on the ground: Jeroen Willemsen, who’s attended for two decades. This is part one of our EMS coverage.

– Mario Christou

Now that the heat has died down, lets talk Essen. Every time I sit down to write about the Essen Motor Show, I hit the same brick wall: where do you even start? Twenty years of trudging through these halls and I still don’t have a killer opening line. So sod it, let’s start with the basics. 

End of November. Nine huge halls of the Essen Messe in – wait for it – Essen, Germany. Over 500 exhibitors from more than 20 countries, and roughly 360,000 visitors piling through the doors in one week, making this one of, if not the, biggest automotive gatherings in Europe. You’re treated to an action-packed program with live motorsport demos, autograph sessions, and product presentations.

But the most interesting part for us car enthusiasts is the Tuning Experience in hall 5, in which you’ll find more than 150 cars, carefully curated by a team led by Sven Schulz. Other highlights include halls 6 and 7 in which you can find tuning companies such as JP Performance, KW Suspension and Streetec GMBH – but more on that later. 

Lets start at the Tuning Experience hall. I always try to take in the sights and sounds first before I even start clicking away with my camera. I noticed some heavy hitters I’ve seen before, but also a lot of new kids on the block – a refreshing start to a long day of walking and talking with friends, old and new.

The variety in cars is massive. From full blown show cars that won’t get a license plate for obvious reasons to more casual street builds. Even the variety in approaches is limitless. From OEM+ to a full Shakotan build and everything in between.

The first car that caught my eye was this Mercedes-Benz 190 E, built by Nic Stubbs. I’ve seen it online a hundred times, but in the flesh it’s even better. I really like that Nic had a plan and stuck to it.

He executed it flawlessly, from the exterior with the famous Falken livery, to the interior where we can see the Falken colorway continued. Inside the engine bay there is an M113 V8 engine. Expect a full feature on these very pages real soon.

Another familiar face was Martin Szombierski’s Mercedes-Benz W108. I saw this car at Ultrace two years ago, and it was one of my favorite cars there. It still looks as good as it did then. You’re actually looking at two cars, because the owner built it around a Mercedes-Benz W211 chassis and fitted the body of the Mercedes-Benz W108 on top of it.

So it has all the creature comforts of a much newer car but with the looks from 1969, plus the metal wide fenders. The Hella driving lamps are a nod to the infamous Mercedes-Benz ‘Red Pig’ race car.

Another car I had seen online many times before was the VW Brasilia built and owned by Josefine Lindqvist. Alen Haseta wrote a feature on this car, so check it out here: The Art Of Not Giving Up. A Different Kind Of Volkswagen.

I would consider this VW T2 bus a full blown show car. We saw it first at Ultrace in Poland, but it never fails to impress. The list of modifications is endless, but it all starts with the BMW V12 engine that has been placed in the middle of the car.

The seating position was changed in true McLaren F1 style, and the width of the car has almost been doubled. Love it or hate it, you’ve got to respect the graft.

And while we talk about respecting the craft, here’s a category of cars I know nothing about, I present to you…this hotrod. It’s not that I dislike hot rods but it’s a type of car you never see on the roads in the Netherlands. I have a feeling that it is the same in other countries, because I doubt these cars are comfortable to drive, but let’s focus on the car we see here. 

The basis of the car is not your typical US car but an Italian Fiat 1100 from 1948 – a perfect example of out of the box thinking. I also noticed a small logo on the engine, and yes, that is a real Ferrari V8.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a Lotus Omega or Lotus Carlton if you are from the UK. This one is much rarer. It is a DTM-homologation model built by Irmscher for Opel itself in 1991. At the time, the DTM regulations required that at least 500 street-legal versions of the race car had to be produced, and this is one of them: the Opel Omega EVO 500. Under the hood you will find a 4.0 liter 24v 6-cylinder engine putting out 230bhp, directly derived from the race version. 

Even the outside looks almost identical to the race car, except this one has had some modifications, such as the three-piece RH Crossline wheels in 19” and lots of carbon parts made by K-Tech. 

This combo came all the way from South Africa, built by Chip Moosa of Chicanos Customs and brought to Essen by the chaps from Car Audio & Security from the UK. As the BMW E34 M5 Touring was never offered in South Africa, the owner had to get creative. He took a BMW 525 Touring and swapped every part to make it look like a real M5 Touring. We’re talking front fenders, grill, bumpers, sideskirts and even OEM replacement headlights, tailights, foglights and indicators 

But the swap is not purely cosmetic. Under the hood you will find the S38B38 engine from the early nineties, produced by BMW for the European market E34 M5. Air suspension was fitted – because we all love low cars – and to match the BMW 1602 on the trailer, a set of 17-inch BBS RS wheels were fitted. 

The BMW 1602 was built by the same shop and still features the original M10B16 engine. This too has air suspension and the same 3-piece BBS RS wheels, but this time in 16-inch diameter. Inside we see leather seats in an off-white colorway with perforated, diamond-stitched centers. A 3d printer was used to make the front splitter and rear spoiler, while the wider fenders were ordered to make it look like a Turbo version.

This BMW M3 is the true definition of OEM+. At first glance you would think it is just another lowered M3, but when you look closer you will see a lot of small details. Let’s start with the obvious – the wheels and fitment. The fender to lip ratio is perfect, thanks to the Airlift Performance air ride.

The wheels are a set of 3 piece BBS E88 with polished lips and gold centers. They measure 9j x 19-inch in the front and 11j x 19-inch in the back. The combination of the gold centers, polished lip and the Phoenix Yellow paint just speaks to me. 

The rear hatch has been replaced by a genuine CSL version, as has the rear diffuser – straight from the CSL parts catalogue. The rear lights have been replaced by their US-spec counterparts and all silver/chrome parts have been painted black. The owner smashed the piggy bank and ordered every M Performance part available for the interior.

The last car I wanted to show is this Citroën CX from 1986. It’s not a car you would normally associate with tuning, but even these cars have potential. On the outside, everything has been tidies up, but the most interesting parts are the suicide doors that did not come standard on this model.

When you open them, you’re treated to a fully customized interior in Guacamole Green fabric.

Time to take a look at the cars in hall 6, where you’ll find the tuning companies. One of the things I noticed was the increase in wheel manufacturers this year. I’m not complaining because they had some cool cars on display, but I wonder how many of these brands will survive into 2026. 

My first stop is always with Jean-Pierre Kraemer and his team at JP Performance. They have one of the biggest stands at EMS, and they always have a few surprises. In the weeks leading up to the event you can follow their journey through their YouTube channel. Speaking of which, they started in 2012 and have amassed 2.1 billion views. You could say he is world famous in Germany, but he also let me in on a little secret. They are working on an English-translated version for the non-German speaking audience.

My first port of call was JP’s Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R. The idea was to create the best possible R34, so the entire car was taken apart and put back together only using Nismo parts.

Even all of the screws, window trims and all other miscellaneous parts were replaced. Custom made ‘Nismo’ wheels were ordered to squeeze over the R35 GT-R brakes.

One of the big surprises was the custom wide-body Jaguar E-Type. The metal work has been done by Meister Megerle, and is still in the early stages of getting finished. Next to the main JP Performance stand was the K80 wheels stand – a subsidiary of JP Performance.

I caught a glimpse of the wheels that are meant for this E-Type, made entirely from titanium and with a unique design.

Let’s take a look at the other companies present.

It seemed that the BMW M3 Touring and even the new M5 touring were favorites among tuners, because everywhere I looked I could see one or the other.

The Audi Sport Quattro isn’t really a daily driver, as it’s more or less priceless these days. LCE changes that with its take on the Sport Quattro.

LCE has created the “Short Classic” as an entirely new rally or road model, fully customizable, starting at 300hp and featuring 100% German TÜV certification. In this case it went with a version in a matt ‘tausilber’ finish. At the heart is a 2.5 liter 20-valve five-cylinder engine with 550ps and 680Nm, giving the car its distinct sound we all know and love. Yido Performance provided the wheels, called the Retro One.

This deserves a proper shout-out. The mad scientists at HolyHall are cooking up something outrageous. Remember their ultra-wide, cyberpunk Ford Capri? Yeah, this takes it up a notch. 

Based on a Lotus Esprit, this is a custom tube-frame creation called the ESP-ONE. The blueprint? A digital fever dream from MakeHasteCorp, penned by design wizards Carlos Pecino (aka ColorSponge) and Ash Thorp.

The car made its public debut on the H&R Springs stand, and for good reason. It’s running a proper motorsport-style pushrod suspension system, featuring H&R hardware.

These were some of my favorites from this year’s show, and the rest can be seen in the gallery below. If you want to know or see more please leave a comment, and I’ll see if I can give you some more info. Thanks for reading!