WALTER Magazine #25 THE HEART SURGEON | Visit from Walter Röhrl

When the engine builders don’t know what to do with a classic car, they call

Thorsten Ihlo. The carburetor expert from the Bavarian Forest is like the

most of his works: a unique piece.

TEXT: Markus Stier PHOTOS: Michael Heimrich & Michael Orth

He was certainly a bit nervous about the high-profile visit. Thorsten Ihlo isn't someone who's easily impressed by important people, or those who think they are. He worked for many years as a graphic designer at a large advertising agency in cosmopolitan Hamburg and realized, "All that frills and frills aren't my thing." But he was young, and he needed the money, and his drawing skills are one of the three great talents God gave him.

Even back then, he would hop on his Harley and drive eight hours into the Bavarian Forest to clear his mind and replace the champagne fog with the scent of pine trees. In the far north, the Bremen native met a girl from Lower Bavaria, and somehow everything fell into place. "I always wanted to move to the countryside anyway," he says, calling the move "the best decision of my life." Only later, when his father dug out an old photo from the Lam swimming pool, did Ihlo realize it was a homecoming. "That's where I learned to walk." Now he has both feet firmly planted in Rimbach, a quarter of an hour away from the outdoor pool, which still exists, and only around 30 kilometers from his current guest.

Right on time, Röhrl roars into the yard in his red Porsche 356. "That's where you recognize the rally man," says Ihlo approvingly, whose life is as much defined by timing and precision as that of an extreme car driver. Ihlo is a carburetor specialist; no, the carburetor specialist.

He doesn't talk about money or names, but large, reputable restoration companies call him when old cars are shining again, engines are rebuilt, but then just don't seem to run properly. Walter Röhrl has never heard of him, and it's practically around the corner, so he wanted to stop by. "Unbelievable, I should have been here a long time ago, right in my neighborhood. A magnificent place, landscape, and workshop," Röhrl berates himself for the omission.

The workshop next to the house isn't an oil-smelling shed with overflowing cabinets, rusty scrap metal, and tools lying around; this is a meticulously tidy clinic, and Ihlo is the heart surgeon. "People always say the heart of a car is the engine, but the heart of the engine is the carburetor."

He himself doesn't know how and when exactly these petrol and air atomizers got such a hold on him that they still don't let go. It all had to do with the great

He started with his brother's bicycle, disassembling its spoked wheels into all their individual parts and then reassembling them. Admittedly, the bike didn't run smoothly after that, But this only aroused his ambition. Screwing is his second great talent, and the longer he earned his living as a commercial artist, the clearer it became that he

wanted to make his first. He built his '52 with a '74 Shovelhead engine himself at home. He's very familiar with the American V2 beasts, having even built racing carburetors.

for speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats. He occasionally accepts motorcycle commissions, but not under 500 cc, otherwise the financial outlay isn't worth it. He mainly deals with cars, mostly air-cooled ones. A Solex 28 PCI from a Beetle was the first carburetor he studied in detail, and The topic never left him again.

FAILING CARBURETOR

Perhaps it's his weakness for underdogs. No wonder your father, a Bremen shipyard worker, tells you all your life that you were conceived in a toilet in the Weserstadion. Ihlo lives in Lower Bavaria, where people don't like Munich, and he's not a fan of FC Bayern. Perhaps it's also his strong sense of justice. "The carburetor is always somehow to blame for everything. They call it He doesn't call him a failure for nothing." Ihlo discovered that in most cases, the fault lies with the accused. And he discovered that even for many engine specialists, the carburetor is a closed book. And in this large black hole in the middle of the car universe, Thorsten Ihlo lit a candle and brought light into the darkness.

The carburetor era has been history for over three decades. Since the introduction of the Euro 1 emissions standard in 1993, three-way catalytic converters have been mandatory, which only work with fuel injection. Visitor Röhrl remembers carburetor engines from the twilight of his career, but when he broke into the world elite with his victory at the Acropolis Rally half a century ago, the twin carburetors on the cross-flow engine of his Ascona A had just given way to Kugelfischer fuel injection.

PREFERABLY IN THE DARK

Carburettors have only become his daily bread again since he, as a Porsche ambassador, drives around the country in museum treasures or around his homeland in his own. "With the old cars, you feel everything much more," says the man who claims to

I've always wanted to drive alone anyway. Preferably alone. And in the dark. Ihlo has to laugh: "And I always just wanted to tinker. Preferably alone and in the dark."

But right now, two people are happy that it's light and that they're not alone. Röhrl is Röhrl, polite, friendly, approachable. Ihlo has two dogs, and his wife has baked nut cake. This is how you can quickly soften up the Regensburger, who used to seem so hard and gnarled. After an hour, the great Mr. Röhrl is only nor Walter, who is just as amazed by Thorsten's CV as he is by the career of the great house guest.

The man, who had graduated with a first-class design degree and had a well-paid job in Hamburg, went back to school, where they had to create a new department specifically for the exotic car. "Master of Restoration for Carburetors and Fuel Mixture Preparation" is written on the certificate.

Cell phones didn't exist back then. Ihlo built himself a specialized library. Even when he was on the toilet, he leafed through workshop manuals and owner's manuals. He has a photographic memory, which is his third great talent. "Once I've made a carburetor, I never need an exploded drawing of it again," he says. he swears. "Then I'll have it all on my hard drive."

ADS OR ADVERTISING? NOT NECESSARY

He has never placed an ad, he has a website, but he doesn't really need advertising. "From the beginning, it was word of mouth," he says. When he opened the

When he took the big leap and became self-employed, he didn't need to take out a loan. He already had many of his tools and machines. He was able to buy some of them cheaply from

from his old master, who worked at Rheinmetall. He built some things himself, but he doesn't want to show everything during the house visit. What wizard lets people see behind their cloak?

Sure, sometimes it's a pretty sad sight to see a car that's been sitting outside in the rain for 20 years, with the carburetor and throttle body lovingly corroded into a rusty unit, but Thorsten doesn't do anything wrong. He once repaired a rare French motorcycle from 1904, whose carburetor had nothing left but the remains and a few handwritten notes. Throttle bodies and throttle shafts are tricky, but Thorsten can make them himself. Depending on the degree of damage, he'll replicate parts, but otherwise, in a patina restoration like this, he strives to preserve as much of the original as possible. Apart from electroplating, if something needs to be chrome-plated or galvanized, he can do everything himself. "I basically have three jobs in one."

Like every other carburetor in Cologne, every carburetor is different, but no matter how complicated or broken, there's no such thing as a major problem. At most, there's the occasional glitch when a component doesn't do what its worker wants. "When it's slow, when it eats up your time, it drives me crazy." But he only really gets nervous when he has more than 7,000 parts in progress. Only then does he get the uneasy feeling of losing track.

When he needs a break from tinkering, he tinkers, especially in winter and only for himself. "For me, this is meditation," says the carburetor guru, who is not called that

He also doesn't like the sound of pope and luminary, but what kind of person can you call someone like that? He calls himself a fetishist, and he also accepts the term "perfectionist."

He has this in common with Röhrl, whom he previously only knew from the sports show. "They're totally crazy," said his father, who never had a driver's license. The junior was

Both fascinated and horrified by how someone could roast through the snow in the darkness, or by the crowds of people jumping around on the slopes back then. "No wonder he won the Monte Carlo four times," says Thorsten, now that they know each other. "It's great that there's still someone like him," says Walter.

He admires the Weber-DCM carburetors that Thorsten is currently working on. They come from a 1960 356, one of the rare examples with the legendary Fuhrmann

Engines like those found in James Dean's 550 Spyder. "It's incredible how much effort and precision go into this. Anyone asking for money is in the wrong place anyway," says Walter, and promises: "I'll make sure you don't run out of work." But can you even call that work? Thorsten turns 55 this September. Of course, he sometimes thinks about what comes next. Anyone who creates a kingdom, no matter how small, also thinks about the succession to the throne. Thorsten doesn't have any children he could infect with his passion for carburetors and out in the wide world? "I'd love someone to take over, but I haven't come across one yet. The words future and fuel are pretty far apart for young people," he says. Walter invites them to return the call and implores: "Hopefully, a young person will be found who is willing to continue the workshop. They can still gain ten to twelve years of experience and learn from Thorsten."

And if not? "If I stay healthy and alive, I can continue doing this for quite a while," says Ihlo. When little Thorsten was still in school, Saturdays were the best days of the week. Today, big Thorsten says, "I can make a living from what I do. I won't get rich, but for me, every day is Saturday." How much richer can a person be?

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