One to Buy: 1 of 10 AC Schnitzer 1991 BMW Z1
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The only mild criticism of the Z1 had been that its chassis was capable of handling far more power than the stock 2.5-litre straight six engine could muster. However, just a fraction of the 8000 buyers that purchased this avantgarde roadster commissioned a high performance version from either Alpina or AC Schnitzer who were BMW’s specially favoured aftermarket outfits with many years experience racing and tuning the products from Bavaria.
Both firms offered a Z1 conversion focused around an enlarged 2.7-litre engine. Surprisingly though, just 66 copies of Alpina’s RLE emerged while AC Schnitzer is understood to have created only ten examples of its own fully equipped upgrade package.
Starting with the Z1’s stock M20 B25 engine, Schnitzer fitted a long stroke crankshaft and pistons which took displacement from 2494cc to 2693cc (a gain of 199cc). The result was a power output of 195bhp compared to 170bhp for the standard Z1. To this, Schnitzer added its Type 2 17-inch diameter wheels, Bilstein shocks and shorter springs that dropped the ride height by 30mm.
The result was a faster, dynamically superior Z1 that also looked better than any other.
On November 7th, one of those rarely seen AC Schnitzer-modified Z1s will be going under the hammer during Broad Arrow Auctions’ Zurich sale.
A final year Z1 completed by BMW on February 19th 1991, chassis WBABA91040AL06957 was configured in Dream Black Metallic over Dark Grey Nubuck with camouflage leather inserts. From Munich, chassis ‘6957’ headed straight to the AC Schnitzer works in Freilassing, arriving on February 25th. Following its conversion, the car was registered on June 12th through Schnitzer's own dealership. The accompanying original service book records that Schnitzer carried out the Z1’s earliest services before the car headed to the UK. Here it was sold by the Sytner agency in October 1997 at which point the odometer showed 20,017km.
Sytner then replaced the original speedometer for a metric version and, by the time of ‘6957’s next service in 1998, the reading was 1298 miles. A decade of UK service stamps details the mileage increase to 60,501 miles by September 2009, at which point the Z1 was exported to the Netherlands and the original speedometer was re-instated.
Acquired by the current custodian in March 2018, chassis ‘6957’ subsequently returned to Germany. It heads to auction with circa 135,000km having been accumulated in total.
