There's a faded photograph on the wall of a small garage in downtown Stuttgart. It shows three cars lined up in what looks like an industrial estate: two red, one yellow, all wearing the subtle side stripes that became Klaus Notz's signature. Most people walking past wouldn't give them a second glance—they look like mildly modified Civetta Bolides, nothing more.

Which is exactly how Klaus Notz wanted it.

Notz Bolide front view.

Those three cars represent something remarkable in the world of 1980s automotive tuning. While other workshops were bolting massive wings onto Hermann 610s and turning perfectly elegant Civetta supercars into cartoon characters, Notz was doing something different. They were making cars faster, better, more exciting—without feeling the need to shout about it.

Klaus Notz arrived in West Germany sometime in the 1970s with little more than a toolbox and an East German engineering education that had taught him to make the most of limited resources. He found work at ETK, where his talent for improving things quickly became apparent to management—and more importantly, to the wealthy customers who brought their cars in for service.

"Why not a custom exhaust system?" Klaus would suggest when a client complained their ETK sedan felt sluggish. "This suspension could be much sharper with the right adjustments." The requests started small but grew more ambitious as word spread through Stuttgart's automotive circles. Klaus was doing exceptional work, but there was one problem: he was doing it in ETK's official service bays.

When management finally caught on, Klaus wasn't fired—his work was too good for that—but he was firmly told to stick to warranty repairs and scheduled maintenance. The writing was on the wall. Klaus borrowed money, rented a small garage downtown, and went into business for himself.

The transition wasn't glamorous. Money was perpetually tight, Klaus often worked alone until the early hours, and building a client base from scratch in Germany's competitive tuning scene required both skill and patience. But Klaus had both, plus something rarer: a genuine belief that every car could be improved, and that the improvement should serve the owner's desires rather than the tuner's ego.

"You don't rob banks in Italian supercars. Unless you're in a Hollywood movie."
— Klaus Notz on his clientele

By the early 1980s, Notz had developed a reputation among a very specific clientele. These weren't boy racers looking to impress their friends, nor were they track-day enthusiasts chasing lap times. They were successful men—often very successful, though Klaus preferred not to inquire too deeply into the sources of their wealth—who wanted their cars to be exceptional without being obvious about it.

The more money his clients had, the more ambitious their requests became. Which brings us to the car that would define Klaus's career: a Civetta Bolide whose owner had a simple request. He wanted to smoke any other car on the road, no matter what it was.

This was at a time when Civetta's engineers were justifiably proud that their 3.2-liter V8 in the Bolide 320 GTT could reliably produce around 500 horsepower without immediately destroying itself. Klaus looked at that engine and saw potential. A lot of potential.

The rebuild took months. Custom internals, upgraded turbo system, revised cooling—everything that could be improved, was. The result made exactly 1000 horsepower, hence the name that would eventually make it famous: the Competizione 1000TT. The reliability took a predictable hit—there's only so much you can ask of 1980s metallurgy—but the performance was shocking. Word spread through Germany's underground racing scene like wildfire.

Klaus realized he was sitting on something special, and for the first time in his career, he decided to go public with it. The official Notz Competizione 1000TT was unveiled as Klaus's first real step into the spotlight, complete with the first Notz logo to appear on a car—subtle, just a stripe along the side, but unmistakably there.

The body received a complete overhaul: new bumpers, spoilers, hood, and custom headlights. Yet unlike some of the more theatrical tuning houses of the era, the 1000TT remained recognizably a Bolide. The changes were aggressive but tasteful, dramatic but not cartoonish. Only the custom nose cone really gave away that this wasn't a factory car.

Klaus's business model was refreshingly straightforward: bring us your Bolide chassis, and we'll build you a 1000TT. Only three cars officially received the treatment, and each became the stuff of bedroom poster legend for automotive-obsessed teenagers across Europe.

Success in the tuning world often leads to expansion, and Klaus saw an opportunity in the growing aftermarket parts market. Exotic cars from the 1970s were beginning to lose value by the late 1980s, and owners were increasingly willing to modify them with bolt-on parts rather than expensive bespoke work. Enter Notz Artisan, a luxury-focused parts division that offered the kind of upgrades you could actually order from a catalog.

Notz Bolide rear view.

Artisan was more business opportunity than artistic mission, but the parts looked good and came with Klaus's reputation for quality. Unlike the main Notz operation's one-off builds, Artisan components were mass-produced—relatively speaking. You could visit select dealers and walk out with a Notz Artisan front spoiler for your Hermann or custom shift knob for your ETK. The parts had style and substance, but they were never going to be museum pieces.

By the 1990s, the automotive world was changing in ways that made Klaus's approach feel increasingly outdated. The tuning industry was splitting into two camps: legitimate manufacturers who had evolved beyond their aftermarket roots, and mass-market companies churning out parts for anyone with a credit card. Klaus looked at both paths and decided neither suited him.

There was another factor weighing on his decision. Cars themselves were becoming dramatically more powerful. Factory ETK sedans were making hundreds of horsepower with sophisticated all-wheel-drive systems. The performance gap between showroom and workshop was narrowing, and the wealthy clientele that had built Notz's reputation was moving on to newer, more exotic machinery.

Klaus scaled back operations, eventually returning Notz to what it had always been at heart: a service garage for people who understood the difference between maintenance and mediocrity. You can still get your car tuned there today, but with Klaus retired, the era of bespoke thousand-horsepower builds is history.

Klaus Notz never set out to revolutionize anything. He simply wanted to build cars the way their owners dreamed them, without making a spectacle of the process. That philosophy—service over showmanship, substance over spectacle—feels increasingly rare in today's automotive world.

The small garage in Stuttgart still operates, still services performance cars with the same attention to detail Klaus demanded. But the era of the thousand-horsepower one-offs is over, relegated to history books and the occasional magazine retrospective. Perhaps that's fitting. Klaus always preferred his work to speak for itself, quietly and without fanfare.