Gemballa's end...

If you really know what Gemballa means, this was the famous tuner for Porsches (take note for the Boxster-based GTR 500, and the 911 Turbo-based GTR 750, as seen on Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3/Shutokou Battle Zero-One from PS2), Ferraris (the F355 from Midnight Club 3 Remix), and Lamborghinis respectively.

I just found something on the internet earlier, regarding Uwe Gemballa's mysterious disappearance:

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/15/report-euro-tuner-king-uwe-gemballa-missing-in-south-africa/

If some of you realize that the man behind Gemballa is missing, we don't really know what happened. Some say, he went to South Africa, others said he was kidnapped, and a few said, he was running away from the feds.

Check out another related article:

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/23/whered-uwe-go-new-gemballa-company-reportedly-formed-under-mot?icid=sphere_blogsmith_inpage_autoblog

And if that wasn't enough, here is another related article:

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/18/gemballa-reportedly-closes-up-shop-uwe-still-missing/

It seems that the founder's mystery disappearance marks the end of the tuning franchise. Guess most Porsche fans would be sad by hearing this. Especially video game makers planning for next racing games would be difficult finding licensing rights to Gemballa. (Thank goodness, the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 still has licensing rights to another Porsche tuner, RuF)

With Gemballa's end, will RuF be next? Hope not!