As with nearly all major car shows this year, the coronavirus pandemic has forced organizers of the Essen Motor Show to cancel the annual tuning event. SEMA’s European equivalent has been rescheduled for November 2021, but that isn’t stopping German tuner AC Schnitzer from introducing its traditional “police car” developed every year as part of the “Tune It! Safe!” campaign.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s actually an initiative started back in 2005 by the Verband Deutscher Automobil Tuner / VDAT (Association of German Automobile Tuners) to demonstrate tuning a car can be perfectly safe. AC Schnitzer is introducing its sixth police car lookalike, based on the BMW 8 Series Coupe in the M850i specification.
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The modifications started off with the usual police car livery courtesy of a Foliatec full body wrap complemented by blue lights on the roof and bumper, and even a police car radio system inside. Needless to say, the BMW 8 Series here is more about the actual tuning upgrades, which vary from a custom body kit to an upgraded quad exhaust system featuring carbon fiber tips.
AC Schnitzer has also lowered the Bavarian performance coupe courtesy of aftermarket suspension springs and has installed new 21-inch wheels with a matte anthracite finish. Most of the newly gained body parts come in carbon fiber and there are some aluminum upgrades inside for the pedals, footrest, gear shift paddles, and around the infotainment system.
No tuning program would be complete without some actual performance gains, so AC Schnitzer also fiddled with the twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8 engine. It usually makes 523 horsepower, but it has now been massaged to deliver 612 hp, so merely five horses shy of the M8 Competition. Torque is also up considerably, from 750 Newton-meters (553 pound-feet) to a mountain-moving 840 Nm (627 lb-ft).
AC Schnitzer doesn’t say how fast the M850i is with the upgraded engine, but we’ll remind you a stock M8 Competition Coupe needs three seconds flat for the 0-60 mph run and tops out at 190 mph (305 km/h).