Power at Your Fingertips: APR and Dinan Are Building an Online “App Store” for Euro Tuners

If you’ve ever modified a vehicle produced by the Volkswagen Group, you’ve heard of APR. It’s a similar story with BMWs and Dinan. Today, these two mainstays of the Euro tuning scene operate under the Holley brand umbrella, combining their respective experiences to serve a modern market that increasingly favors software tweaks over hardware replacements and package deals over bespoke builds.

To get some insight into how APR and Dinan have joined forces in their approach to the evolving tuning landscape, we spoke with Arin Ahnell, Director of Euro Product Strategy at Holley Performance Brands.

“I’ve been with [APR] for 16 years, starting when the company was privately owned and very small. I have seen it go through every stage since then, first with private equity and now under public ownership. Dinan joined us at our headquarters in Opelika, AL in late 2017, and we’ve been growing together ever since.

“Lately we’ve both been seeing more consumers that just want the easy button, especially when they’re buying a new car, and Dinan’s neatly packaged upgrade approach is something we’re taking to the APR side: We’re going pick out core vehicles like a Volkswagen GTI and Golf R, create upgrade packages, and sell them with an APR powertrain warranty at a discount through our dealer network compared to people buying all the components separately and making them work together correctly. 

“We will work directly with the dealership, and even if the failure item is covered by the factory warranty first, we’ll still just replace it if it’s part of our warranty package. The idea is just to make it easy for customers to modify their cars without the typical risks of doing so. There are still people that go down the full custom build route, but we’re seeing less of that; we’re basically selling solutions that people know will work. They know what they’re going to get.”

But what about the parts and packages themselves? Where do they come from? APR and Dinan share a pool of engineers, with marketing and brand management roles being the only real silos. In other words, if you buy a suspension kit from APR, there’s a good chance a Dinan engineer worked on it, and vice versa if you’ve fitted a new exhaust to your Bimmer. The two brands understand their customers and choose which products to develop accordingly (Arin is the APR counterpart to Dinan’s brand manager, Nathan Fette), but the actual development is a one-team effort.

Intakes, exhausts, turbo conversions, suspension components, big brake kits, and other physical products are still in demand, but ECU tuning has grown significantly over the years as a means of unlocking and sharpening the inherent potential in late-model performance cars. The range of what’s adjustable is huge, too: from fully remapping a Golf R to simply controlling how much you want the exhaust valve to open when you put your new Porsche in Sport mode. In the past, you would have to physically bring your car to APR, Dinan, or a certified dealer to flash the ECU every time you wanted to make a change, but now you can do it over the air.

APR’s latest tuning toy is called the Ultralink (A Dinan version is on the way). It plugs into your car’s OBD2 port via a USB dongle and pairs with an internet-connected laptop to give owners access to the APR Ultralink Marketplace, where they can select from “more than 10,000 popular high-performance tunes for leading European-brand makes.”

Per the APR website: “APR Ultralink will support vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Seat, Skoda, Cupra, Bentley and Lamborghini, and is designed for vehicle models ranging from the early 2000s to new 2024 models. Customers can buy and tune an unlimited number of vehicles with one Ultralink device.” Cost depends on your application, with the physical Ultralink unit coming in at $129.95, plus the price of each tune, which varies depending on the application. APR claims you can go from buying to completing a tune installation in as little as 15 minutes.

As Arin puts it: “Here’s an example: You have a newer GTI with some mods. If you plug the Ultralink in, it will show you all the different tunes you can apply to your car depending on the hardware configuration you have. Then you can buy and install the tune of your choosing without needing anything more than an internet-connected laptop. Then you can swap between the tunes and maps that you own without having to spend the time to bring the car to us.”

And the Ultralink is not just for modified cars. Say you have a new Audi S4 but want more adjustability than the factory-designated settings: You can tweak the stock hardware to dial the car’s behavior to your liking without turning a wrench. Instead of swapping in different dampers, you can just dial the existing suspension to your liking. You get the idea. 

Because newer cars have more sensors and settings and therefore more inherent adjustability baked in, being able to tap into that OEM hardware with aftermarket software is an increasingly appealing option for drivers who’d rather not take a deep plunge into hardware swaps, let alone cracking a modern ECU’s nest of interconnected systems. The hardcore tuning crowd will always exist, but there are a lot more enthusiasts out there who prefer manipulating OEM parts than doing something drastic like bolting a turbo onto an engine that didn’t come with one. 

If you’re at SEMA this week and would like to check out the latest APR and Dinan upgrades, the demo cars with all the latest products can be found at the Holley booth, #22463 in the Central Hall.