On March 17th, the auto tuning world lost a very special individual when Richard Hamann, the man behind Hamann Motorsport, passed away due to lung cancer. He was 53.

Still recovering in the wake of Uwe Gemballa’s gruesome murder less than a year ago, the auto tuning industry was given another jolting shock with Hamann’s untimely death. While words won’t begin to express our deepest sympathies and condolences to the Hamann family, we nevertheless send our love and prayers in this time of sorrow.

Richard Hamann was a man of many things. He was a celebrated race car driver in his early years and later on, he traded away the cockpit for the tuning shops when he founded Hamann Motorsports in 1986. In the 20-plus years of its existence, Hamann became one of the world’s premier tuning companies.[...]