Klausen Is The One-Stop Swiss Shop For All Things Enthusiast Automobile
Photography by Mathieu Bonnevie for Klausen
Motorheads like us enjoy our car-shaped pieces of novelty chocolate just fine, but our major reasons for visiting Switzerland aren’t confectionary. Boasting some of the dreamiest mountain passes to drive (and occasionally race) on in the world, it is a utopian place to find yourself in even a bog-standard rental car. For a country with strict speed limits, steep fines for breaking them, and an all but complete ban on motorsports taking place within its mountainous borders, there is still no dearth of successful racing cars throughout history that have had little red and white flags painted on their flanks, and the major cities and Alpine resort towns like Geneva and St. Moritz are some of the best places to wander around with a camera and a coffee if daily-driven supercars are your cup of tea.
It’s a tiny country with a very high per capita GDP, and that is often a magnet for fantastic automobiles. As such, there are plenty of brick and mortar businesses and other services in the country to sort out your automotive needs—whether it’s time for snow tires on the F50 or a tuneup for your Delta S4 before tackling the Bernina—but our friends at Klausen offer the full gamut under one name.
Storage and upkeep, basic maintenance, major servicing, full restorations done in-house, simulation training, in-car training, race season support, any need you can name is something they can assist with. With the company’s headquarters located in the municipality of Gland on Lake Geneva, the various teams at Klausen (named after the famous mountain pass in the country that hosted some of the first hill climb races in Europe) can undertake a full concours-level restoration of a vintage sports car, set you on a path toward competing in something like the Blancpain GT championship, or simply make sure your pride and joy is tucked into a safe climate-controlled space for the winter. None of this comes cheap of course, but these are super cars and race cars and surgeon-style workshops in Switzerland we’re talking about. If you have the means to have the problem of “where can I have my McLaren F1 serviced,” “where should my Type 35 live for the winter,” or “what’s the best diet and workout plan for me if I want to seriously race single-seaters,” then Klausen is worth a look.
