Brabus: The Rundown on Everyone’s Favorite Mercedes Tuner
Thanks to some parental guidance and the lack of Mercedes tuners, the founder behind Brabus was set on a path to history.
Once upon a time, there was a dearth of tuners in Germany who could turn a Mercedes into a monster. Sure, AMG was around, but they were focused on motorsport, not customers coming off the street or showroom. Not yet, anyway.
Bodo Buschmann was such a customer, but rather than wait for someone to come around, he started his own tuning company. Thus, a legend was born. Donut Media’s Up to Speed host James Pumphrey has Buschmann’s tale of how a Porsche 911 led to the creation of Brabus.
According to Pumphrey, Buschmann was a law student who, like most young Germans studying law, owned a Porsche 911. His family owned a Mercedes dealership, where Buschmann would park his 911 out front. As that wasn’t a good look, to say the least, his father told him he could only park his car if his car was a Mercedes. Thus, Buschmann swapped out the 911 for an S-Class.
Alas, making his S-Class fast was easier said than done, at least by anyone else. Turning lemons into lemonade, Buschmann “built his Benz into a Porsche-beating machine.” Customers at his family’s dealership wanted to know more about the badass Benz parked out front, Buschmann saw an opportunity, and with his university friend Klaus Brackman, founded Brabus in 1977. Brackman, however wasn’t into tuning cars, so he sold his part of Brabus to Buschmann for 100 German Marks (about $60, though the Mark hasn’t been in use since 1999). The first shop was established at the dealership, and the tuned Mercedes monsters soon appeared.
Once the 1980s rolled around, Brabus began upping the stakes with more power and aero tricks, while also upping the luxury with amenities like TVs for the rear passengers. The 1990s brought Formula One technology to the party, while Brabus’ reputation drew in the likes of Bugatti, Smart, even Infiniti. And while AMG linked up with Mercedes as the latter’s high-performance wing, Brabus only saw more opportunities for more insanity, building cars so powerful the tires were not ready for the records the tuner’s cars laid down. Once the tire manufacturers stepped up, though, Brabus redid those records over and over again into today.
While Buschmann left this mortal coil in April 2018, his legacy lives on through the likes of the Rocket 900, a Mercedes-Maybach putting out 900 horses and over 1,000 lbs-ft of torque, as well as the care and quality put into each Mercedes Brabus touches.
Join the MB World forums now!
