A German Take On Japanese: AC Schnitzer Has Tuned The Mk V Supra and Given It A Big Power Bump As Well


A German Take On Japanese: AC Schnitzer Has Tuned The Mk V Supra and Given It A Big Power Bump As Well

(Words by Tom Lohnes) – Third party tuning companies are a great thing. Second parties are cool, but they have restraints by the manufacturers and things like OE emissions standards they have to keep in order to maintain their factory relationships. Consider AMG and Brabus. AMG is Mercedes-Benz in house tuner, and makes cars with Twin turbo V8s have up to 630 horsepower. Brabus will then take your 630 horsepower, V8 powered car, and discard that engine completely and stuff in a fire-breathing 800 horsepower, twin turbo V12. See what I mean? That is the gloves off move. Toyota had some huge restraints making the new BMW Z4, er, Toyota Supra, such as not having a long rumored 3JZ engine and using the BMW B58 inline six making 335 horsepower. That engine actually is proving to be very tunable, so AC Schnitzer took advantage of it.

If you don’t know who AC Schnitzer is, they’re a third party tuner for BMW. They crank up the power of all sorts of M cars, and can even make a six-cylinder BMW 5-Series competitive with a V8 powered M5. As AC Schnitzer was designing a new body kit and tune for the new Z4, they decided to take advantage of its near-identical counterpart, the Mk V Toyota Supra and make double off of the kits. So what exactly did they do? They cranked the engine power output up from 335 horses to 400 and the torque up from 369 to 442 through tuning as well as some more free breathing components. They also have mentioned an exhaust system that makes “a sonorous sound”. Styling wise? It’s aggressive. They’ve fitted a full carbon-fiber body kit and a massive rear spoiler, and giant 21-inch rims. Yes, 21.

So do you want to blow at least another $10,000 on an already $60,000 car? If the answer is yes, the kit for the Supra and it’s convertible cousin are just for you. I cant wait to hear that “sonorous” exhaust note.


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0