- technical garage sasaki, also known as brilliant exhaust, is a one-man operation that has fine-tuned two old mercedes-benz s-class cars to sound like f1 racers.
- the original car was purchased by automotive photographer mark riccioni, and the second was sold to automotive youtuber effspot, who posted the video below.
- the shop also modifies exhaust systems on ferraris, lamborghinis, maseratis, bmws, and more.
you might not have heard of technical garage sasaki, an exhaust tuning garage in japan and owner of brilliant exhaust, because sasaki doesn't advertise much and hasn't cultivated much of a social-media presence. but you might have heard his f1-sounding w140 s-class a few years ago from a video posted on youtube of it ripping through japanese tunnels.
the car in the video was sasaki's w140 s600, which was used as his company’s demo car from 2016 until automotive photographer mark riccioni purchased it toward the end of 2018. the car is a japan-only model in amg guise, powered by an m120 6.0-liter v-12, the same engine found in the pagani zonda. it's fitted with brilliant's headers and exhaust to make those 12 cylinders scream.
"it's brilliantly ridiculous," riccioni says about the car. "excuse the pun." the car is usually met with a lot of confusion followed by immediate laughter, he says. there's even a separate key fob to open and close the exhaust valves.
the m120 6.0-liter v-12 found inside the w140 s600 made 402 horsepower from the factory; a 7.0-liter version found in the s70 amg made 496 horsepower. and if that wasn't enough, and if you could spare the dough, a 525-hp 7.3-liter v-12 was available. but the german luxury sedan wasn't built to sound as irrational as this one.
sasaki started out working on bmws and ferraris at his shop in kawasaki, a city south of tokyo. however, the car that gained him attention wasn't his w140. it was a w220 s600 that was also featured in a video, although this one was posted a few years before the infamous tunnel-run video. he used the w220's v-12 to finesse the perfect sound so that if you had your eyes closed, a four-door luxury sedan would be your last guess.
the videos helped shed some light on the quiet shop in kawasaki. in april 2019, youtuber effspot placed an order for the second, and first customer, s600 brilliant exhaust build, and in september, he re-created sasaki's original tunnel-run video and trolled mclaren, lamborghini, and ferrari owners on the streets of japan. the money he made from the two videos alone covered the cost of the $12,000 installation of the exhaust system. we know this because earlier this month, he posted a video explaining his profits to his viewers.
if you check out brilliant exhaust’s instagram page, you can see numerous cold-start videos of ferraris, lamborghinis, aston martins, and more with the brilliant exhaust treatment. headphones or speakers with max volume recommended.