Family enterprise and global player

The design of high-performance engines for motor racing still represents the core business of Spiess Motorenbau GmbH. A long time ago, already, the medium-sized company based in Ditzingen near Stuttgart turned into a global player. Today, not only company founder Siegfried Spiess - who laid the foundation stone for Spiess Motorenbau GmbH with his successes as racing driver and tuner, in the 1960s - stands behind the company name: in the meantime his son Holger Spiess is involved as Managing Director.

Spiess can look back on many years of experience. Since the foundation back in the 1970s, the company gathered experience with power units of different manufacturers and designs. No matter if - in the early years - NSU, then Audi or - today - Opel: whenever an engine is supposed to be turned into a racing power unit, Spiess represents one of the top addresses. A long time ago, already, the former garage turned into a true high-tech company, equipped with everything from design work stations through CNC moulding cutters to dynamic state-of-the-art test benches.

Despite the enormous expansion, terms such as 'lean management' and customer closeness' do not only represent understood business principles, for Spiess, but also are just necessary, for the company. Racing means speed, serenity, control and moving at the very limit. The smallest mistakes are crucial when it comes to winning or losing. Hence, the Spiess mechanics always travel to the race tracks to provide on-site services. And they do so all over the world as the racing engines from Ditzingen do not only win in Europe alone: they also prevail in Argentina, Australia and Asia.

The attribute offering Spiess the chance of entering new areas again and again is the flexibility. For many years, the company specialised in designing Formula 3 engines but since the mid-1990s, it also builds other racing engines. 2-litre engines for different Super Touring Car Championships, power units for the British Touring Car Championship, the V8 of the DTM Vectra GTS or the eight-cylinder engine that powered the Opel Coupe securing the overall win in the Nürburgring 24-Hour Race - high-performance engines made by Spiess.

But the customers from professional motor racing aren't the only ones benefiting from the know-how available in Ditzingen. More and more, clients from other business areas also rely on the Spiess Motorenbau GmbH skills. "With the experience, experts and technical equipment of our company we can supply many business areas, from the single copy to the batch production," explains Holger Spiess.