Crikey: AC Schnitzer saved!
AM Group steps in, promising 'a new phase of investment in product development, design and international growth'
Just the other day we were discussing the sorry situation that is Schnitzer (and how great a 610hp M3 looked); today, there is good news, with confirmation that Dutch-based AM Group will acquire AC Schnitzer from the Kohl Group this November. It means the storied tuner will live to see its 40th birthday, and a future will exist for those who want to modify their Mini or BMW (and don’t fancy some of those dubious factory add-ons). Huzzah.
It sounds like AM Group is ideally placed to take the AC Schnitzer challenge on, too, as its bunch of brands already includes Urban Automotive. Plus many others you won’t have heard of, but the British tuner is the important one, as they’ve been going great guns modifying SUVs of late. To the extent of designing and making its own carbon bodykits; you probably didn’t like it for a Urus, but the potential of sharing that expertise with Schnitzer now it’s part of the same group bodes well for future BMW carbon goodies. (There are composite companies in the AM portfolio, too.) Urban’s Milton Keynes base would be an ideal central-ish location for Schnitzer in the UK, too, if that’s getting too ahead of ourselves. Certainly more than Rossiters near Kings Lynn was.
There’s further good news for the brand in the UK, too, as Imran Arshad will be MD of AC Schnitzer. He’s co-founder of Evolve Automotive and Eventuri, the former a very well-regarded BMW aftermarket operation and the latter a maker of some exceptional carbon intakes. You really haven’t lived until you’ve heard a V8 M3 snorting through an Eventuri setup. Nobody knows tuning BMWs quite like Arshad, so he should be ideally placed to guide Schnitzer into its fifth decade and beyond.
He said of his new job: “Clear vision, engineering excellence, purposeful design, and attention to detail – these are the values that have made AC Schnitzer so appealing to BMW customers, including myself. The brand’s heritage is the foundation for innovation – for the further development of the design language and the technical principles that define AC Schnitzer." While AM Group is based in Rotterdam, Schnitzer will not be losing its German roots. A new company will be created in Germany ‘to which existing technical documentation and TUV certification files will be transferred’. You might remember that one of the issues facing Schnitzer in recent times was the time it took for parts to be approved for sale in its homeland; hopefully a separate company can help with expediting that process.
The man who made those comments earlier in the year, AC Schnitzer MD Rainer Vogel, said of today’s announcement: “I am truly delighted that we have found the perfect partner for AC Schnitzer – one that genuinely understands the brand. AM Group provides the resources the company needs in a rapidly changing market environment to drive growth, increase dynamism and strengthen its appeal to new customer segments.”
So while these sorts of deals always come with an air of optimism and potential, it does feel like the right people are taking on AC Schnitzer. AM Group might not be a known name, but Urban Automotive and Imran Arshad certainly are. Consider hopes reasonably high, then. And no time like the present to be thinking about 40th anniversary plans…
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