People often say that cars are no longer interesting to young generations, that modified cars, sports cars, motorsport, and the pure fascination with cars are things of the past. Maybe they’re just looking in the wrong places or have never really experienced it?

For us at KW, that’s simply unthinkable. Once again, the Essen Motor Show 2025 was a huge success for KW automotive and the reason is simple: because of you!

Over 200,000 visitors attended this year, and at our large booth in Hall 3 shared with ap Sportfahrwerke, BBS, Reiger, and ST suspensions. We had fantastic conversations, lots of business, and simply an amazing time. And of course, there was a reason to celebrate: 30 years of KW coilover suspensions at the Essen Motor Show.

Since 1995, this fair has been KW automotive’s most important stage, where we first introduced our coilover systems.

At our dedicated exhibition area, we showcased highlights from KW’s history: our developments in technology, our depth of production, our site expansion, our OEM projects, and the growth of our brands.

If you want to dive deeper, you can find more details on the KW automotive Blog.

Motorsport Meets Passion

Motorsport has always been in KW suspensions DNA. Over the years, we have earned a reputation as a reliable partner for race teams around the world, and today our KW Racing dampers equip countless race cars.

At the show, we put a spotlight on our racing expertise: from the KW V7 Racing dampers for the new Lamborghini GT3 Temerario to the KW V1 SP Racing for the BMW M2 Racing.

Motorsport fans could also admire a Porsche 911 GT3 R a very special model equipped straight from the factory with KW V6 Racing dampers. Only 77 of these ultra-exclusive cars were built, each priced at roughly €1.13 million.

Our other coilover applications were also well represented in Essen. Over recent years, KW suspensions has built a wide offering of coilovers for young classics and vintage cars. Some of our classic applications are available as part of the “Classic Line” with black springs and spring perches.

At the show, we presented the beautifully restored VW Golf I GTI Pirelli of our colleague Uwe, lowered with a KW V3 Classic suspension and equipped with timeless 17-inch BBS LM wheels. This lovingly built collector’s car proves that even after all these years, we still live our petrolhead passion to the fullest.

In 2024, we presented the BMW M5 (G90) with KW V4 coilovers at the Essen Motor Show. This year, the spotlight was on the BMW M3 CS Touring (G81). The triple-adjustable KW V4 coilover suspension is now available for the sporty touring model, and we unveiled it at the show.

In addition to the well-known BBS CI-R Unlimited forged wheels, the BMW M3 CS Touring also rolled on the new BBS CH-R II Unlimited forged wheels.

The Nissan GT-R displayed at the joint BBS and KW stand was also equipped with the new BBS CH-R II wheels and a three-way adjustable KW V4 Clubsport coilover suspension.

The First Two-Piece Unlimited Wheel: BBS CH-R II

This year marked the official launch of the BBS CH-R II Unlimited forged wheel at the Essen Motor Show, which was first introduced at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July 2025.

It is the first two-piece wheel in the BBS Unlimited program. On request, the wheel center and rim can be painted in different colors. The rim is available in black or titanium, in matte or glossy finishes, and the wheel center can be chosen in black, diamond grey, racing gold, white gold, or bronze, in either satin or glossy finish.

BBS Unlimited accessories such as rim protectors, center caps, wheel bolts, and valve caps are available in multiple color variants. Even the connecting bolts come in black or titanium, resulting in up to 80 possible color combinations. High-quality titanium wheel bolts are also available.

The available widths of the BBS CH-R II Unlimited wheel range from 8.5 to 11.5 inches, and they are available in 20, 21, and 22-inch sizes. Thanks to patented hub adapters and center rings, the BBS CH-R II Unlimited wheels can be mounted on nearly all vehicles with a five-lug pattern. The two-piece BBS CH-R II Unlimited flow-forming forged wheel is now offered with official certification. In the future, we have much more planned with our BBS Unlimited program and we’ll keep you updated.

ST XTA plus 3 for Toyota GR Corolla

A real milestone in the history of our brand ST suspensions, founded in 1979, was the introduction of the ST XTA plus 3 coilover suspension in 2020. This is a coilover suspension that, similar to the KW V4 Clubsport and KW V4 coilover suspension, has adjustable dampers for high-speed compression, low-speed compression, and low-speed rebound. In addition, the XTA plus 3 also features racing springs and uniball-mounted upper mounts.

Now it’s also available for the Toyota GR Corolla. Currently, this sporty compact with all-wheel drive, rally genes, and around 300 hp is offered in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Thailand — but maybe the five-door will still come to Europe?

In addition, on the ST area we presented the entire ST product range from spacer kits to coilovers, coil springs, sport suspensions, and Spring Distance Kits (lift kits).

More Novelties from Reiger and ap Sportfahrwerke

Also in the new Reiger MT-RC 2.5 offroad damper for the Jeep Wrangler JL lies the technology of the Rallye Dakar.

This new Reiger damper, with its “monotube design”, is triple-adjustable, features TTG technology, and will appear for further offroad models over the course of 2026.

In addition, Reiger presented its extensive offroad suspension program from the World Rally Championship to the Rallye Dakar and also exhibited a Toyota Hilux T1+ Dakar competition vehicle.

At the ap Sportfahrwerke space, the community was in the spotlight at the Essen Motor Show. The exhibition vehicles were selected via ap Sportfahrwerke’s social-media channels. ap presented a WTCC promotion BMW from Engstler Motorsport with a Flossmann carbon widebody kit and an Audi A8 in tiger wrap.

But we weren’t present in Essen only with our suspension and wheel brands. Our SimRacing brands Ascher Racing, TrackTime, and RaceRoom were also present on the ADAC area and organized the final of the DTM eSports Community Cup together with the DTM.

Also present again was the KW Berg Cup e.V. as well as Street Society. There was plenty of merch from our brands as well as Georg Plasa’s BMW E36 320 JUDD V8 and other legendary hill-climb cars.

Thank you to all visitors of the Essen Motor Show and for sharing the same passion as we do.