Opel or Vauxhall Tuning Houses?

Opel or Vauxhall Tuning Houses?

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Shifter1

Original Poster:

1,081 posts

98 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
quotequote all
I know Irmscher and Steinmetz. Are they the only specialized tuning houses? I mean tuning houses in the style of AMG before the merge. Not just companies which sell chips and the like. So I mean companies that have full packages including engine and styling and so on.

I seem to remember another Opel tuning house, but I can't for the love of God come up with the name. I'm inclined to think it was Dutch, but maybe German. And I think they are no longer in business but were in the 90's for sure.

Anyway, are there more besides Irmscher and Steinmetz?

I asked at the Vauxhall section but it seems to be a ghost town over there.

roboxm3

2,443 posts

202 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
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Courtney used to be a Vauxhall tuning specialist back in the day IIRC.

s m

23,512 posts

210 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
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Mattig?

Shifter1

Original Poster:

1,081 posts

98 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
quotequote all
Courtenay only sold Irmscher body kits.

Mattig also only made body kits. They weren't the "Opel AMG".

I must be thinking of another one.

Glasgowrob

3,265 posts

128 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
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you thinking about Thorney motorsport?

DuncB7

353 posts

105 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
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What about MTech?

They used to do the conversion kits for 20XE into the Nova & Corsa B IIRC, amongst other things of course.

Shifter1

Original Poster:

1,081 posts

98 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
quotequote all
Whatever it is, I'm thinking they were not English. But I'm not sure.

And they put out their own cars, like Irmscher did with the Omega Evolution 500 and the Irmscher Senator etc back in the 80's and 90's. And Steinmetz did with their Turbo Steinmetz cars.

Like I'm saying, they were like AMG, meaning they put out their own cars. Not only one of the thousands of companies who sell just a few performance bits etc.

It's also not Mantzel by the way, who put out a version of the Omega GSI which looked sort of like a copy of the Lotus Carlton.

Edited by Shifter1 on Thursday 12th January 11:58

HedgeyGedgey

1,296 posts

101 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
quotequote all
There is no "tuning" house at vauxhall. You couldn't go into the vauxhall dealer and order a turbo (as an example) conversion through an external business. You had to buy the car from vauxhall then take it to the tuning company. But you can have a dealer fit spoiler/bodykit from the likes of Irmscher but the factory will not know what cars will have Irmscher add ons, as said the dealers bodyshop will add on spoilers etc

Glasgowrob

3,265 posts

128 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
quotequote all
Thorney offer the VXR-R conversions at delivery

Shifter1

Original Poster:

1,081 posts

98 months

Thursday 12th January 2017
quotequote all
HedgeyGedgey said:
There is no "tuning" house at vauxhall. You couldn't go into the vauxhall dealer and order a turbo (as an example) conversion through an external business. You had to buy the car from vauxhall then take it to the tuning company. But you can have a dealer fit spoiler/bodykit from the likes of Irmscher but the factory will not know what cars will have Irmscher add ons, as said the dealers bodyshop will add on spoilers etc
This is not what I'm saying when I say like AMG, hence why I said like AMG before the merge. Before AMG became part of Mercedes. When they were independent in the 80's, it also worked that way. You could send your car in and they would convert it. Now AMG is just an arm of Mercedes, like BMW M. But it wasn't always that way.

And the tuning house I have in mind was probably Opel. Not Vauxhall. It was also like this. You could send your car in and they would convert it to a full version. The same was true with Steinmetz and Irmscher. Was only later that you could order Irmscher through the Opel or Vauxhall dealership.


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Edited by Shifter1 on Friday 13th January 14:06

Shifter1

Original Poster:

1,081 posts

98 months

Saturday 14th January 2017
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No wonder replies stop coming. I see the thread was moved to ghost town.rolleyes