AC Schnitzer ACS2 Sport review

9

Attention-grabbing German tuning firm turns up the wick on BMW’s M2

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If there’s an automotive concern to which the idiom ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ applies almost perfectly, it’s Aachen-based AC Schnitzer.

The UK’s petrolheads have mostly grown out of adding catalogue-ordered wings and other ‘enhancements’ to cars that came with an adequately disreputable aura straight from the factory, and Schnitzer’s full conversions can appear cartoonish to our eyes now. ‘Style over substance’ is the gut response, but in the case of the ACS2 Sport, successor to this car, don’t put too much stock in your viscera just yet.

The car’s stance is superb. With silver paint, gold wheels and none of the aero bits or decals, the result would look pretty special. Pretty serious too.
Richard Lane
Deputy road test editor

We will get to why that is in a moment. For now, what exactly are we dealing with? The transmogrified 2 Series before you is a full conversion of the G87-generation  BMW M2 (pre-facelift, in this case), and as usual it’s expensive if you go for everything on the menu. This ranges from the fantastically firm, heavily contoured steering wheel to two-way adjustable, KW-built dampers with Schnitzer-specific valving, via plenty of CFRP aero add-ons and carbonfibre trim. Think three figures all-in, but few will go the whole hog. 

The good news is you probably need only two elements to create a car that makes the standard M2 feel ponderous: Schnitzer’s RS suspension (including those KW dampers and a ride-height drop of up to 35mm) and the garish alloys, which are an inch larger than the usual ones yet, being forged rather than cast, weigh around 25% less.

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There’s also the revised engine map to consider. It uses a piggyback ECU to drag power from 454bhp (or 473bhp in the facelifted M2) to 553bhp and torque to a pretty monumental 479lb ft. It makes the ACS2 Sport indecently quick – but then again so is the standard M2. You might notice the uplift with your foot flat on the way down an autobahn slip road, but in the UK you would be hard-pushed to enjoy the difference. 

As with the touring-car canards, the wing and decals, we would leave modifications to BMW’s hulking ‘S58’ 3.0-litre six on the shelf.

So, wheels and suspension: that’s where the transformation lies. And it is a transformation. Aside from the small savings in the alloys, the ACS2 Sport weighs no less than the 1730kg M2, yet it moves with the innate dexterity of something closer to 1400kg.

You notice it straight away, the feeling that the vertical body control and steering response of a Porsche 718 Cayman S have been transplanted. The slack in the M2’s steering pick-up from any starting point has vanished. It’s the same with throttle sensitivity: in absolute terms, of course, it hasn’t changed a jot, but the reduction in body squat when you push on the pedal in effect shortens the car’s reaction time. Same story with braking.

The best bit is that none of this has been achieved by tying the chassis down to an absurd extent. The ACS2 Sport rides well. It’s a little more brittle and noisier than the languid original article on pocked stretches of road, but honestly, the difference is miraculously small when compared with the positives.   

Know also that the M2’s palpable itch to indulge you with some benign oversteer is still there. It’s just that, with the ACS2 Sport, you’re dealing less with a tamed muscle car and more with a proper athlete. It is, in short, sweeter company.

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VERDICT

Next year, BMW will launch its own hot M2, the CS. It will probably be outstanding, extremely expensive and sold out at the start. My advice? Buy a used M2 Competition and give Schnitzer a call. 

Richard Lane

Richard Lane
Title: Deputy road test editor

Richard is Autocar's deputy road test editor. He previously worked at Evo magazine. His role involves travelling far and wide to be among the first to drive new cars. That or heading up to Nuneaton, to fix telemetry gear to test cars at MIRA proving ground and see how faithfully they meet their makers' claims. 

He's also a feature-writer for the magazine, a columnist, and can be often found on Autocar's YouTube channel. 

Highlights at Autocar include a class win while driving a Bowler Defender in the British Cross Country Championship, riding shotgun with a flat-out Walter Röhrl, and setting the magazine's fastest road-test lap-time to date at the wheel of a Ferrari 296 GTB. Nursing a stricken Jeep up 2950ft to the top of a deserted Grossglockner Pass is also in the mix.