Alpina B5 Touring 2017 review
BMW isn’t making an M5 Touring so it has been left to Alpina to produce a rival to AMG’s E 63 Estate. This 600bhp B5 Touring is the result.
The B5 in general and the B5 Touring in particular are exemplars of the philosophy. Trademark 20-spoke alloy wheels aside, they seem so subtle and the polar opposite of the look-at-me approach preferred by BMW’s M division customers. But the numbers speak for themselves: 600bhp, 589lb ft and 202mph flat out. And that’s just the estate.
The start point, clearly, is BMW’s superb new 5 Series but powered by the 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 currently found in its 750i big sister. The main focus of the modifications to it has been the fitment of bigger, twin-scroll turbos boosting at a muscular 1.4 bar. This is enough to raise power from a fairly lazy 444bhp to a very active 600bhp and torque from 479lb ft to 589lb ft.
Four-wheel drive is fitted here for the first time in seven generations of Alpina 5 Series, but Bovensiepen rejects the suggestion that he had no choice in this. "We could have had a rear-drive B5 and I’d have preferred it, but even I accept that with 589lb ft, the customer wants four-wheel drive,” he says. So they fiddled with that, too, and now the B5 sends more of its torque (up to 90%) to the rear wheels and does so more of the time. Interestingly, despite the all-wheel drive hardware adding 70kg, the entire car is 30kg lighter than the previous, rear-drive B5. And Alpina has broken with years of Michelin-shod tradition and developed a new Pirelli tyre to go with the car.
The engine sounds superb and completely natural – although a slightly embarrassed-looking Bovensiepen confesses it’s the first Alpina to synthesise just a tiny bit of sound through the loudspeakers – and is completely simpatico with its new gearshift strategy. It feels properly rapid, as you might expect, but perhaps not quite as alarmingly so as the Mercedes-AMG E 63 Estate, which has the same power, even more torque and a lot less weight.
Price £91,000/ Engine V8, 4394cc, twin-turbo, petrol Power 600bhp at 5750rpm Torque 589lb ft at 3000rpm/ Gearbox 8-spd automatic/ Kerb weight 2150kg/ 0-62mph 3.6sec/ Top speed 202mph
Source: autoexpress.co.uk
The start point, clearly, is BMW’s superb new 5 Series but powered by the 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 currently found in its 750i big sister. The main focus of the modifications to it has been the fitment of bigger, twin-scroll turbos boosting at a muscular 1.4 bar. This is enough to raise power from a fairly lazy 444bhp to a very active 600bhp and torque from 479lb ft to 589lb ft.
Four-wheel drive is fitted here for the first time in seven generations of Alpina 5 Series, but Bovensiepen rejects the suggestion that he had no choice in this. "We could have had a rear-drive B5 and I’d have preferred it, but even I accept that with 589lb ft, the customer wants four-wheel drive,” he says. So they fiddled with that, too, and now the B5 sends more of its torque (up to 90%) to the rear wheels and does so more of the time. Interestingly, despite the all-wheel drive hardware adding 70kg, the entire car is 30kg lighter than the previous, rear-drive B5. And Alpina has broken with years of Michelin-shod tradition and developed a new Pirelli tyre to go with the car.
The engine sounds superb and completely natural – although a slightly embarrassed-looking Bovensiepen confesses it’s the first Alpina to synthesise just a tiny bit of sound through the loudspeakers – and is completely simpatico with its new gearshift strategy. It feels properly rapid, as you might expect, but perhaps not quite as alarmingly so as the Mercedes-AMG E 63 Estate, which has the same power, even more torque and a lot less weight.
Price £91,000/ Engine V8, 4394cc, twin-turbo, petrol Power 600bhp at 5750rpm Torque 589lb ft at 3000rpm/ Gearbox 8-spd automatic/ Kerb weight 2150kg/ 0-62mph 3.6sec/ Top speed 202mph
Source: autoexpress.co.uk
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