BMW-Car_Ausgabe-Februar-2011_535i-F10.pdf

Special

After a period of absence, Kelleners Sport has returned to the

BMW tuning scene and its 535i looks set to bring the brand

back with a bang

Words: Sebastian de Latour Photography: Dave Smith

B MW enthusiasts will no doubt recognise

Visually, the Kelleners 535i is nothing short of

spectacular – it looks like it would eat your children

when you weren’t looking and have your dog for

dessert. But somehow it manages to be both

incredibly aggressive and hugely intimidating but

without coming across as vulgar or over the top.

While I can appreciate that perhaps Kelleners’ styling

won’t appeal to all tastes, I personally think it’s

awesome and however menacing it may appear in

the photos, in the metal it’s terrifying. Kelleners has

worked hard to ensure that the bodystyling isn’t made

up of separate sections but that each piece of the

whole kit flows into the next, making it look a lot

more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing.

The front bumper can take the bulk of the credit

when it comes to the 535i’s looks because it does

most of the work and it’s what gives the car its visual

clout. It appears that whoever designed it left their

pencil and compass at home and only had their set

square to hand because it’s a riot of right angles,

eschewing curves in favour of bold square shapes. It

makes the F10 look massively wide, with those

squared-off edges that house the vertical LED arrays.

the Kelleners Sport name, though in

recent years it has been notable in the

BMW tuning scene only by its absence

and it’s been quite some time since the

company has brought out any new products. But,

thankfully, Kelleners Sport is making a welcome return

to the BMW scene, in a new location, under new

management and with the facilities and technical

expertise of Mercedes tuning expert Carlsson to hand.

And, judging by its first car, it’s off to a cracking start.

The car that has been tasked with the responsibility

of re-introducing the company to the world is the F10

535i and the team at Kelleners Sport has been

working away furiously for the best part of 2010 to

create a package for the car from scratch in order to

have it ready for its grand unveiling at the Essen

Motorshow last December. I can’t even begin to

imagine how daunting it must be to try and create a

styling package from scratch at the best of times but

when it’s for the first car from an essentially new

company, it has to be absolutely bang on. No

pressure then.

50 BMW car

KELLENERS SPORT F10 535i

The slim central air intake is flanked by two

purposeful intakes and, usefully, the bumper employs

a modular design. See that silver lip below the central

intake? If you don’t like it, you don’t have to have it.

And that stainless steel mesh is optional, too. I’ve

seen the car with and without it and I can’t really

decide which looks better – without the mesh and

with some black grilles and black wheels, it would

look incredibly mean and about as stealthy as is

possible with a car like this, but on the other hand, if

you’re going to the effort of fitting a styling kit that’s

so aggressive and unsubtle, then you might as well

go all out. I like the fact that Kelleners has eschewed

the use of any chrome on this car as well, as far too

many tuners (AC Schnitzer, I’m looking at you) seem

obsessed with the shiny stuff. Stainless steel though,

I’ve got a lot of time for. At the bottom corners of the

front bumper are two little fins that protrude slightly

and the line they create along the bottom edge is

picked up by the side skirts and the elongated design

of these, with their flared rear sections, has been

created to give the car a more coupé-like appearance

in profile, so I’m told. I’m not usually a fan of side

FEBRUARY 2011 51

skirts but I think these look really good – I like the

way they make the car appear even lower and I’d

even go so far as to agree with the coupé profile idea.

The flared rear sections of the skirts are then taken up

by the bottom edge of the rear bumper and this

features a central diffuser section which can be

painted in a contrasting colour to the rest of the

bumper – grey in this case – which is a nice touch as

it makes it more prominent and gives the rear

bumper a more purposeful look. I love the big, fat,

shiny quartet of exhausts, too. Each pair is staggered

slightly and they sit right at the edges of the bumper,

making the car look indecently wide from the rear

and they’re massive – not so much hinting at this

car’s potential as announcing it to the world via

megaphone with accompanying fireworks and laser

show. There’s also a rear spoiler, which is surprisingly

large but blends in with the lines of the car to such a

degree that unless you’re looking for it, it’s easy to

miss, especially on a black car. Finally, at least on this

example, Kelleners has left the interior well alone,

opting only for some branded mats and a pedal set.

And that’s fine by me because the standard F10

interior is so nice I can’t see any reason to go around

filling it full of trinkets.

I’m naturally a little nervous about taking to the

streets in the one and only Kelleners 535i currently in

existence – kerbing a wheel or grinding the front

bumper on the tarmac doesn’t bear thinking about –

but as Kelleners’ MD Marco Reinberg explains, the

idea behind the car was to create a styling package

that looks good but without compromising usability.

“We have lowered the car,” he says, “but not so much

that you can’t use it – there’s still plenty of ground

clearance and you don’t have to worry about scraping

the bumper or skirts.” That’s good to hear.

The 535i fires with a four-gun salute courtesy of its

sports exhaust and settles into a restrained yet

purposeful idle. Sitting behind the steering wheel with

your feet obscuring the Kelleners pedals and your

legs covering the Kelleners logo on the floor mat,

aside from the gentle throb of the exhaust there’s

nothing to suggest that this is anything other than a

standard 5 Series, which makes a nice change. A

sport suspension kit is available for the F10 from

Kelleners but this car was just fitted with a set of

lowering springs which drop the ride height by

30mm, enough to make the 5 Series look a bit more

purposeful but not so low as to render it undriveable.

This car has been specced with VDC and retains the

adjustable dampers so even though the ride is

naturally a little firmer than standard on the sport

springs, you can still either soften it up or firm it

further if you so desire.

The Kelleners 535i wears the company’s Hamburg

design alloys in a 20-inch diameter, though they are

also available as 19s. There’s so much going on here

that the wheels just shouldn’t work and yet in the

metal they are stunning. They are a 15-spoke design

with five single spokes and ten spokes arranged in

pairs with a recessed feature on the outside of each

pair and the spokes extend out from the centre of

the wheel at a slight angle before bending back in to

the edge of the wheel. This does mean that the

knuckle in the spokes does protrude ever so slightly

beyond the safety net of the of the tyres so there’s

52 BMW car

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