Dirk Behlau A drag race at Bottrop Kustom Kultur, an annual meeting of rat rodders held in Hünxe, Germany.The modern passenger car may have its roots in Germany, but some young German enthusiasts are more inclined to pay homage to the automobile’s American forebears.
Like any car-collector scene, the Germans are divided into niches. Hot-rod customizers, for example, take over an airfield in Hünxe every summer for Bottrop Kustom Kultur, the largest show of its kind in Germany. But cross-pollination among the scenes does happen.
“It’s weird because Germany invented the automobile, but doesn’t seem to have fun with it,” said Ralf Becker, who runs Chromjuwelen, a Web site devoted to classic American automotive memorabilia. “German motor sport is more technical. It’s not driver emotional. That’s what I like about America.”
“Some years ago a lot of kids wanted to have a BMW 3 Series,” Mr. Becker continued. “Now all those kids want to have a Ford Mustang. The Ford Mustang is the new BMW 3.”
Driving an older American car in Germany is not easy or cheap. Parts are rare, gas is expensive and without a knowledgeable uncle who can wrench a Holley carburetor, many of the enthusiasts are on their own with maintenance.
Even so, the bad-boy attitude — real or imagined — projected by older American cars can prove irresistible. “We started with the German cars, but American cars are bigger and have more horsepower,” said Helge Thomsen, who has collected American cars for two decades and is particularly smitten with American designs from the ’60s. He drives a 1966 Dodge Coronet wagon. “We like the lifestyle, the ’60s soul,” he said.
Car-centric films like “Bullitt,” starring Steve McQueen, inspired him to start the German-language classic-car magazine Moto Raver in 1999.
Mr. Thomsen lives in Hamburg, where he frequently sees Dodge muscle cars with Mopar badging. “The bad guys always drive Mopars in the movies,” he said. “It’s Mopar city in Hamburg.”
Hamburg, an industrial center, is also wealthy enough to nurture the habit, but some people in the classic-car culture are critical of what they perceive as a less-than-100-percent commitment to the lifestyle.
Oliver Kaps opened Style Deluxe, a hot-rod shop in Hamburg five years ago. “For me these people are weekend drivers,” he said of many Mopar enthusiasts. “If you are into the custom cars and into the lifestyle you have to live it. The people who drive muscle cars don’t look like they drive muscle cars.”
Despite his critiques, Mr. Kaps embodies the cross-pollination that occurs among the various scenes. He is steeped in the hot-rod iconography of pinup girls and rockabilly sneers, and name-checks the German chapter of the Rumblers, the hot-rod club founded in New York. Even so, his daily driver is a lowrider 1964 Chevrolet Impala station wagon, inspired by a trip to California.
Mr. Kaps has also restored muscle cars, most recently a 1973 Dodge Challenger. “I think it’s a growing scene,” he said. “It’s getting bigger in the last three years. In 2005 there was one custom car show. Now you can go to every weekend to shows. People come all over from Europe.”
Dirk Behlau, a photographer who often shoots old American custom cars and their drivers, shares Mr. Kaps’s assessment of the growing Mopar-based muscle scene, but not to the exclusion of other models. “Everybody wants a Bulllitt Mustang,” he said.
Of the three large Detroit automakers, only Chevrolet sells a contemporary muscle car in Germany, its retrofuturist Camaro. “We don’t rebadge it or anything like that,” Dave Caldwell, a Chevrolet spokesman, said in an e-mail message. “Small numbers, but yes the car is available there.”
The new Camaro may yet have its moment among these collectors, but for now, the focus remains on the past.