Don’t act surprised—we both knew AC Schnitzer wasn’t just going to sit on its hands and let the BMW M3 and M4 go un-tuned. With the BMW M3 and M4 by AC Schnitzer, the familiar tuner recipe is every bit as alluring as the German outfit’s past undertakings.
At the heart of the AC Schnitzer M3 and M4 is an upgraded powerplant, courtesy of a tweaked ECU. Electronic fiddling with the 3.0-liter twin-turbo straight-six bumps output up from the standard 425 hp and 406 lb-ft to a much more hefty 503 hp and 476 lb-ft. Those power and torque figures even best those of the 2016 BMW M4 GTS, which tops out at 493 hp and 442 lb-ft. Yikes.
To make sure the world knows damn well about your added muscle, AC Schnitzer prepped its M3 and M4 with its own special exhaust kit, featuring Sport or Sport Black tailpipes, as well as available flap control, exhaust traps, and sound pipes.
No tuner M3 is complete without a bit of a slam, and the AC Schnitzer version offers a pair of options on that front. First is a spring kit that drops the front and rear by about 1 inch and 0.5 inches, respectively. Second is an adjustable racing coilover suspension that drops the front by as much as 1.6 inches and the rear 1.2 inches. The tuner claims its M3 and M4 will be capable of even higher cornering speeds with its upgraded suspension, which is a little terrifying given how the stock sport sedan already scoots around a road course.
All of AC Schnitzer’s downforce-improving aero bits probably help, too. You can opt for the whole kit or any individual parts, but the whole enchilada includes a carbon-fiber front spoiler, racing front splitter, carbon front side wings, a carbon rear wing in your choice of two heights, carbon rear diffuser, rear roof spoiler, and carbon mirror covers. There is a range of wheel choices ranging from 19 to 21 inches in either aluminum or forged aluminum. And inside you’ll get a custom feel with aluminum pedals, gear shifter, and handbrake handle, as well as velour mats.
Lamborghini owners not satisfied with their Huracan coupes as is now have three After Sales packages they can choose from to spice things up. The packages are available for both rear- and all-wheel-drive Huracan models and can be installed at one of the more than 130 authorized Lamborghini dealerships around the world.
If the Huracan’s exotic sheetmetal isn’t extreme enough for you, Lambo offers the aerodynamic kit, which includes a front splitter, side skirts, rear diffuser, and a large fixed rear wing. The pieces are made from strong, lightweight composite materials and come finished in matte black. Lamborghini says the kit was developed and tested in wind tunnels to ensure safety, and is the only one approved for the Huracan. For even more exterior pizazz, you can choose the aesthetic package. That adds matte black, glossy black, or red racing stripes to complement the car’s paint job. Lambo says the pre-cut graphics are easily removable and won’t damage the paint.
Lastly, Lamborghini offers a center-locking wheel conversation kit. This replaces the standard five-lug hubs with a racing-inspired center-locking system. It also comes with exclusive black-finshed, Super Trofeo-inspired 20-inch wheels that are compatible with all 20-inch Huracan tires.
The kits are now available worldwide and do not affect the car’s warranty.
BMW is launching a replacement for the E92 M3 GT4 customer race car. The M4 GT4 will be available to customer teams for the 2018 season, and uses parts found on the production M4 and M4 GTS. The car joins a number of other GT4-spec offerings, including the McLaren 570S GT4 and Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport.
The M4 GT4 lifts its drivetrain and electronics straight out of the production M4 coupe. The seats, brakes, and pedal box are carried over from the M6 GT3, while the carbon fiber hood is borrowed from the M4 GTS. The GT4 also features carbon fiber doors, a unique motorsport front splitter and rear wing, and a racing exhaust system.
The GT4 is eligible to race in all GT4-class events around the world, and is available for purchase to all customer teams in Germany, Europe, North America, and Asia. BMW Motorsport will offer the GT4 cars to young drivers as a stepping stone to the GT3 program. Privateer teams can register their interest now, and the first cars are set to be delivered in the second half of 2017. The M4 GT4 could make its competition debut as early as January 2018 during the 24 Hours of Dubai. BMW says the first tests will be conducted by the end of this year.
Ryan Tuerck’s insane Ferrari-engined Scion FR-S build is starting to come together, and in the latest video the Formula Drift driver goes over what has been done to the car so far and what the plans are for the future.
To recap, Tuerck is stuffing an F136 4.5-liter flat-plane-crank V-8 from a Ferrari 458 Italia into the engine bay of a Scion FR-S. In the initial teaser video, we were only shown some of the “what” and none of the “how,” but in the latest video Tuerck gets into more of the plan’s specifics. One of the biggest questions we, along with apparently most viewers, had was how the induction system would work with the intake manifold sticking out several inches above the hoodline and the throttle bodies right up against the windshield. Tuerck explains that the wipers will have to be removed, and that intake will be routed through the cabin. A custom induction box with two high-flow air filters will sit in the dash, which will connect to the throttle bodies via a carbon fiber piece running under the dash and through the firewall. The induction box will breathe cold air through ducts placed in the front fenders.
Not surprisingly, space is pretty tight in the FR-S’ engine bay with a 90-degree, dual-overhead-cam V-8 shoehorned in there. With that said, one of the biggest challenges will be fitting a set of exhaust headers that retain the Ferrari’s characteristic sound. Tuerck admits he has no idea how that’s going to happen, but says he has faith in the builders. For the remainder of the video, Tuerck talks about chassis bracing and radiator relocation.
There’s still no word on what gearbox will back the now front-mounted Ferrari engine, but we’re guessing that will be addressed in a later update. Tuerck announced that the build will be finished in October. Check out the video below to learn more about this Italo-Japanese Frankenstein’s monster.
Recently, I was driving the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell, an SUV you’d immediately recognize on the road by the words “Clean H2O Emissions” adhered to the side of its doors. As much as I enjoyed the new experience, I don’t miss traveling 15 miles to the nearest hydrogen fueling station. It has been a few months since we sent our (slightly) more modest-looking Kia Soul EV back to its hamster home, and commandeering the Tucson reminded me how much I missed the little box car that proved surprisingly capable as an everyday driver.
What will I miss? For one thing, I enjoyed the smooth drive afforded by its electric powertrain, which accelerates up to speed on the freeway reasonably quickly. We’ve noted that its electric architecture, which packages a flat battery beneath the floor, rides much more smoothly than the traditional gas-powered Soul. It’s also much quieter than the gas model; it generates only middling amounts of road and wind noise. Some of the EV’s biggest gems are inside the cabin: the responsive 8.0-inch touchscreen, user-friendly navigation system, and leather trimmed seats with ventilation up front and heating in front and back. I’ll especially miss the tech tidbits you can’t find on other cars, including a readout that displays how many kilowatts are currently being routed to the drivetrain, climate controls, and electronics systems and a button that directs the A/C only to the driver to conserve energy.
Priced at $36,650, or potentially $26,650 for those able to take full advantage of tax credits, our Soul EV wasn’t cheap. So it’s important that the car doesn’t feel like an econobox. Throughout the year, I frequently wished the Soul EV had power seats, but other than that peccadillo, I didn’t want for more amenities.
Driving the Soul EV for a year uncovered an important finding. Many drivers, particularly those like me with a daily commute of around 55 miles, really can make it every day on electricity alone. A half-decade ago, we spent three months with a 2011 Nissan Leaf, rated at 73 miles per charge, and our staffers said they had to be more mindful of their charging frequency. An extra 20 miles seems to make the difference, and even those with long commutes said it’s easy to work with 93 miles of range. In fact, that EPA estimate may be quite conservative.
According to the data we gathered, our Soul EV’s projected total driving range, based on actual miles driven plus the onboard remaining range readout inside the car, averaged 104 miles, well above the EPA’s rating. The Soul EV’s range readout never dipped below 14 miles during our loan, and the farthest we went on a single charge was 96 miles. The average number of miles we traveled between full charges was much less: just 58.
Not only did our Soul EV exceed its range expectations, but it also proved surprisingly efficient in terms of miles traveled per kilowatt-hour. We averaged 3.79 miles/kW-hr over the course of the year, above the 3.13 miles/kW-hr rating estimated by the EPA. We were impressed once again by this 21 percent improvement over the EPA’s figure.
That’s not to say there weren’t drawbacks to the Soul EV. If I weren’t able to reliably charge at work, driving the Soul EV would have been a much greater challenge. As we’ve noted in past updates, Kia’s UVO EV Services app was only of limited usefulness in helping you find a public charging station; it didn’t always accurately locate the charger in a big structure, nor did it always display current availability of the stations. Once you’ve found and plugged into the station, the app allowed you to check the status of charging and range of the vehicle, but it was slow to respond and couldn’t tell you if there’s a problem with charging. But I feel like I just painted too grim a picture; most of the time, the Soul EV’s standard DC fast charging really came in handy when we wanted to charge up in 30 minutes on the go.
At the end of 13 months, we racked up 10,099 miles on the odometer, not a terribly unreasonable number given the Soul EV is often a customer’s third or fourth car. Maintenance for the year cost $71.42 and consisted of an inspection, tire rotation, and cabin air filter change. The only other long-term EV we can directly compare it to is the Tesla Model S, which cost us $0 to maintain, although we had to plunk down $1,760 for new tires during the course of the year.
Our long-term 2014 Kia Soul, powered by gasoline, cost just $127.32 to maintain—impressive given that it had more than 23,000 miles on the odometer by the end of its stay. At a sticker price of $26,635, that model came in very close to the price of our long-term EV after tax credits. To compare the Soul EV with other subcompacts, our long-term Honda Fit cost $289.98 to maintain after three services, and our 2013 Kia Rio cost $215.55 after four service visits.
The Soul EV’s range may very well hit that sweet spot—that “just enough” mark—that has been eluding other electric vehicles for such a long time. But we likely won’t be proving that theorem again. Based on what we know about electric models coming to market over the next few years, any long-term EV we get in the future should achieve more than 100 miles.
