KW

KW (Klassische Automobile GmbH & Co. KG) was established by Klaus Werner more than 40 years ago in Wuppertal, Germany. At this time the company was one of the first in Europe specialising in the sales of fine historic automobiles. At the beginning most of the cars being handled were interesting road going sportscars like a Jaguar E-Type, Shelby Cobra or Mercedes 300 SL. Over the years, the focus was extended with the sales of rare racing cars with important international race history from the 1930s to the 1970s. Although KW always preferred to keep the cars in their original state, some of them needed to be fully restored to original specification. Especially in the beginning of developing their business in the early 1980s, they owned several pre-war cars, that had not been used for some decades. With those projects they were able to establish a good relation to several of the best restoration workshops in the business and contribute to the preservation of automobile cultural assets by bringing those cars back to life. Most of the cars that KW handled over the years were built by the great and successful Italian manufacturers Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati – but they also were part time caretakers of other important cars like an Aston Martin DBR1, BMW V12 LM, Bugatti Type 57G, McLaren F1 GTR or Porsche 917. Amongst the cars sold are many Grand Prix, Le Mans and World Sportscar Championship winning chassis. Through the handling of this large spectrum, they were able to build up an extensive photographic and documentary archive and a vast knowledge. "Besides the sales business we have always focused on participating in historic race or concours events with our own original cars and by this, showing them in their natural environment to the passionate audience. In the 1980s and 1990s we have organised the Pre-War Sportscar Race at the Nurburging Oldtimer Grand Prix and still today compete in important events like the Le Mans Classic, Monaco Grand Prix Historique or Goodwood Revival." Since late 2015 Max and Moritz Werner, manage the business together with their father Klaus. In November 2020 the company moved to Gruenwald a small village south of Munich, which required Klaus and Max to resign as managing directors. Klaus ist still active as an independent advisor and specialist and Max is running his newly formed company Max Werner Invest GmbH.