Gunther Werks
Pre-Luftgekühlt 10 Open House
October 3, 2024
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Gunther Werks’ Luft 10 open house at the Huntington Beach HQ had the feel of a SoCal cars-and-coffee—owners, neighbors, and the merely obsessed drifting between conversations—just with a higher concentration of billet and carbon-fiber.
Out front, GWR held the center like a thesis: a Rothsport-developed, naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six that revs to 9,000 rpm and makes 500+ hp / 340 lb-ft in a roughly 2,400-lb shell—about 4.8 lb/hp—thanks to the all-carbon bodywork. It’s the analog, high-rev branch of the GW tree, and in person, the intent reads cleanly: lightweight, precision, response.
Parked nearby, the first production Turbo told the other half of the story: a Rothsport 4.0-liter twin-turbo flat-six (600–700 hp depending on mode) with the race-style flat fan, liquid charge cooling, and a six-speed sending power to the rear wheels. The car wore Augusta Green “Diamond Effect” paint—the sparkle comes from an ultra-fine metallic/diamond medium suspended in the finish—and it comes alive any time the light moves. The spec may be outrageous on paper; in person, the packaging and plumbing read like an engineering diagram made tidy.
I kept orbiting the cars while the street taco line worked its way through the courtyard—an easy reminder that this is a community event as much as a product preview. Side-by-side, GWR and the Turbo bracket Gunther Werks’ current range: high-rev N/A purity at one end, forced-induction torque at the other, both wrapped in carbon-fiber with the obsessive panel alignment and stance that carry through every build here in Huntington Beach. It’s the same proposition presented two ways, and the open-house format lets you read each one in live, honest light—no stagecraft required.
