It may take BMW five years to build a replacement for the BMW Z4. AC Schnitzer isn’t waiting. The German BMW tuner used the current E89 Z4 and turned it into an oil-burning beast.
The BMW Z4 is an excellent sports car. Not only is it fun for normal people, but a number of motorsports teams have built their race cars from Z4s. However, if you’re not a driver for BMW Team RLL or Turner Motorsports, the factory BMW Z4 with its factory suspension and factory engine will have to satisfy your need for Z4 speed. Which is pretty darn good. The U.S. version Z4 sDrive35is has a zero-to-60 time of 4.8 seconds and an electronically limited 155 mph top speed. Not bad.
That wasn’t enough for AC Schnitzer’s engineers. They started with a Z4 sDrive23i but decided that another BMW engine might make a better fit under the Z4’s hood. That engine was the M50d. That’s right, a diesel; a triple-turbo six upgraded from 381 horsepower to an OMG! 430 horsepower, and from 545 to 620 pound-feet of torque. With that power, if you get bored on the track, you can always pull tree stumps.
The new creation is called the ACZ4 5.0d.
To handle the extra power, Schnitzer installed an eight-speed automatic transmission instead of the manual standard, and sends power to the rear wheels through a limited slip differential from the E92 BMW M3.
This combination drops the zero-to-60 time to 4.5 seconds but raises the top speed to a non-limited 186 miles per hour.
It’s not just the extra power than makes this Z4 wickedly fast. Schnitzer dropped 288 pounds off the car to bring it to 3240 pounds. To do that, they had to eliminate the hydraulic metal folding roof and trunk lid. Oh well.
The car sports new drag-reducing aerodynamics: a carbon front spoiler, two carbon sports fenders, two hood vents, a two-piece rear spoiler, and the carbon rear skirt insert. The ACZ4 5.0d comes with a fully adjustable and lowered racing suspension and lightweight, high-performance front brakes. AC Schnitzer forged Type VIII alloy wheels finish off the exterior.
Inside are orange trim elements and carbon racing seats embroidered with the ACZ4 5.0d logo. Pedals and footrests are aluminum.
The ACZ4 5.0d costs just under $121,000. If it were for sale, which it isn’t. Sadly, the ACZ4 5.0d is a one-off concept that AC Schnitzer is using as a technology platform for product development. The good news is that many of those products—brake conversions, suspension parts, body and aero panels, interior items, and wheels—are available from AC Schnitzer for the Z4.
So we can't have one, but at least we can have parts of it. All we need is a Z4 to put them on.—Scott Blazey
[Photos courtesy of AC Schnitzer via GTSpirit.com.]
