The Green Agenda

The Green

Agenda Words: Will Beaumont Images: Jordan Butters & AC Schnitzer

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, tuning firms had a pretty easy job when it came to upping the visual ante of the cars they tweaked. Most standard cars were sober affairs, styled with subtlety and restraint in mind.

Look at the E36 and E39 for example. You and I could spot the difference between an M3 and M5 from a cooking model in M Sport trim, but the extra exhaust pipes or more aerodynamic mirrors don’t register on most people’s radar. To the general public, they all look like regular saloon cars.

Throw some big wheels, a jutting front splitter, a massive wing and some wide arches at a 90s car, at a 90s BMW, and you start to make a big impact. Today, however, it’s not so easy to make waves. Not when there are cars like the Honda Civic Type R with so many body add-ons it looks like a Transformer part way through its metamorphosis. Or even the new M3 and M4 that don’t just ooze menace, they shout about their aggression louder than a drunk hooligan does late at night in a kebab shop.

The M3 is an anomaly in the BMW range, it looks distinctly different from the non-M 3 Series. For most other models, it’s business as usual. A 116d M Sport and an M135i xDrive could only be separated in a line-up if you got a long hard look at each of them. The difference now is, though, both have the big wheels, spoilers, dark trim, prominent splitters and all the other paraphernalia of a performance car. The sort of parts stolen from aftermarket tuners. Who, admittedly, stole them from race cars.

At least modern turbocharged engines can be tuned more easily. No matter how well developed a tuner’s power increase might be, there’s not the need to break an engine apart to squeeze in long-stroke cranks, high-lifts cams and enlarge intake ports. Now that’s got to be some consolation to losing the impact a welljudged spoiler can make.

Sadly, there’s no solace in the relative simplicity of turbo tuning for AC Schnitzer, not when it came to working on the F40 M135i xDrive. Because of the car’s Aisin eight-speed automatic gearbox is already close to its limits, the legendary Aachenbased tuners could only add 20-or-so bhp to the M135i’s 302bhp output.

Not enough to justify the price AC Schnitzer needs to charge to cover the necessary development and testing costs that a diligent aftermarket tuner needs to perform to ensure its modifications are suitable.

Needless to say, AC Schnitzer has a tough battle to make its mark on a car that already comes with many of the aftermarket hallmarks, and one they can’t add any power to. What has been changed, then? First, there are new flowformed wheels (£4406.08). 20-inch in diameter, rather than the car’s standard 19-inch rims, and available in all black or black with a diamond-cut face. The rear spoiler’s impact is enhanced by a central insert (£313.41), while at the front is a slim but pronounced splitter (£830.85).

The interior gets a light makeover with some of AC Schnitzer’s black anodised aluminium gear change paddles (£295.05) and stainless steel pedals and footrest (413.95).

AC Schnitzer might not have wound up the boost on the M135i’s 2-litre fourcylinder turbocharged engine, but there could be a small power increase from the stainless steel exhaust system (£1735.73) that it offers. The system also comes with carbonfibre tips and a factory-style valve so that the car can be made louder in Sport mode.

And finally, the biggest change to the car, a set of height, bump and rebound adjustable AC Schnitzer RS coilovers (£2456.79 including alignment). Although you can tinker with them yourself, the suspension comes tuned to AC Schnitzer’s approved and developed settings. Sometimes Rossiter’s, AC Schnitzer’s UK importer and partner, make adjustments for UK roads, but the ACS1 35i has been left unchanged from the German configuration.

All-in, with labour and painting where necessary, the full conversion from M135i xDrive to ACS1 35i costs £11,583.51. Including the price of the basic car (£38,440), that makes it a 50 grand car. Or, right in the region of the 400bhp Mercedes-AMG A45 and Audi RS3.

You notice the ACS1’s new suspension as soon as you start trundling around, even before you’ve let the car warm up. It makes it a much more immediate experience than the regular car, and the steering feels more crisp and precise. Even at slow speeds, this energy instils a much more carefree and fun attitude to the car. You want to make the most of each corner and bend, impatient that the engine hasn’t fully warmed through. It encourages you to drive and enjoy driving in a way the very straightlaced standard M135i xDrive never does.

The ride is different, as you would expect. The more up-for-it AC Schnitzer attitude has elbowed out a degree of comfort. But it’s far more settled than the combination of bigger wheels and coilovers would suggest. It’s as if the springs and dampers have been developed to compensate for the thinner smear of rubber the car now sits on. I am sure that’s exactly what’s happened.

Once the engine is up to temperature, you feel like you can responsibly start messing with Sport mode and, importantly, making the most of what it

offers. More noise is the most obvious feature of this setting, thanks especially to the new exhaust system. A growl from the tips mumbles away behind you when you press the accelerator, and there’s the now obligatory performance car pop and crackle when you back off the accelerator. The sounds are pleasant, even welcome, but a throaty burble and some overrun fireworks can’t perform miracles, the M135i’s engine, a pretty dull unit, still lacks any real character.

It’s a reasonably effective motor, yes. The car is responsive, the new suspension’s attack-ready persona amplifies that. And there lies the problem. Before, in the business-like M135i, the so-so engine is matched by a nonchalant fuss-free character. Now, in this car, where there’s a tantalising energy created by the AC Schnitzer suspension, the turbo four is out of place, like it’s wearing a suit to a beach party.

The gearbox doesn’t help, either. The eight-speed automatic is the weakest part of the M135i xDrive package, and nothing has changed here. Upshifts seem timid and blurred, so there’s no satisfying surge as you accelerate up the ratios. But that’s nothing compared to the downshifts. Pulling the left paddle results in changes so slow you become confused. With no obvious gear indicator on the dash, a plethora of eight ratios to be in and no idea when a lower gear will be engaged, it’s extremely easy to lose track of what’s going on and become muddled. Absolutely not what you want as you’re braking hard for an exciting-looking 90left, that’s for sure.

The Aisin eight-speeder is not in the same league as the ZF automatic transmission that you’ll find in many longitudinal-engined cars, many BMWs too. Maybe it’s unfair to compare the two, there’s a lot less space under the F40’s bonnet than down the transmission tunnel of a 3 or 5 Series. Yet, the ZF unit is the industry standard now, it’s so ubiquitous that it has become the gearbox we compare all other transmissions to. The M135i’s auto absolutely cannot compete. If a torque-converter auto isn’t up to the job, BMW should have fitted a dual-clutch transmission, like the ones that work so well in the M135i’s competitors. Or, even a manual gearbox.

Knowing that it was the gearbox that restricted AC Schnitzer from going to town on the car’s engine and, perhaps, liberating some charisma along with a chunk more power makes the transmission’s ineptitude even more galling.

Do AC Schnitzer’s paddles make any difference to the gear change experience? A tiny one, yes. They’re big and functional and feel like they’ve been nabbed from a WRC car so each pull feels more purposeful. However, the sharp corners of the sheet aluminium aren’t as tactile as other more sculpted billet aftermarket paddles.

Frustrating as the gearbox is, and with no real way to finesse your way around its foibles because such things aren’t possible in modern autos, the drivetrain doesn’t actually ruin the car. The ACS1 is a lively hot hatch, with the fight and determination that’s so prevalent in this genre.

Fast corners, where you don’t ask for too many down changes from the gearbox, can be attacked with the responsive, precise steering and then dismissed in a decidedly rear-biased four-wheel drive manner. As soon as you get on the throttle, you have to take the steering lock off, let all four wheels slingshot you around the last part of the

bend. The wheels aren’t spinning, there is no slide, you don’t need to correct anything, but the g-forces and the fourwheel drive system work in conjunction to get you sailing around each bend with grace.

Tighter corners aren’t quite so dignified, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less satisfying. Not always, anyway. The ACS1 is so darty that you can provoke it into oversteer as you turn in. And it only ever feels fun because the chassis’s control over the car means it’ll never get out of hand, the immediate steering makes it a cinch to correct plus the four-wheel drive system is there to help, too. Exciting, adjustable and controllable, it really does tick a lot of boxes this little hatch.

On inconsistent roads, ones that are wet, dry, muddy and icy in the space of just a few metres, the small AC Schnitzer can also be a little inconsistent. At the fringes of the tyre’s capabilities, you can’t quite anticipate whether it’ll break into that small corner entry slide or if the front might push on. That is, of course, a symptom of the weather rather than a full critique of the car. However, there are certain cars, some cars within BMW’s line-up, that can overcome such maladies and deliver the same result over and over. The standard M135i is not a car that can iron out the complications of an unpredictable road, so it’s not an attribute that has been lost in the conversion to an ASC1, but it is a characteristic that you might expect of an all-wheel drive and, therefore, an all-weather performance car.

AC Schnitzer’s work has successfully made the M135i a more lively and exciting

car. The results are far more enjoyable than the total parts would have you believe, especially as the engine and gearbox have remained unaltered. Would I have preferred it if AC Schnitzer had made the M135i a truly dependable companion on our filthy UK backroads? Yes, but only if the bubbling undercurrent of fun that’s been injected into this car remained so strong. That joyous side, the sort the M135i yearns for from the factory, elevates this car into one that’s far better equipped to do battle in the highly competitive world of modern hot hatches.