The beginner’s guide to Alpina

Alpina is a German manufacturer of extraordinarily fast and luxurious cars based on contemporary BMWs. It’s the car person’s car company, alongside the likes of Ruf and Dallara. Down to its singular focus, stellar talents and severely limited build numbers, Alpina has become something of a byword for the chosen chariots of the car cognoscente.

Alpina started in the 1960s, but if we’re going to be absolute sticklers about it, it only started officially making road cars in 1983. Of course, the difference between what’s official and what is... well, it’s the entire reason we have the phrase ‘de facto’. Alpina was tuning cars in the mid-Sixties, building race cars by the late Sixties and building road cars by the late Seventies.

What comes next is interesting: BMW has bought Alpina out, formed the newly logoed BMW Alpina and led the Bovensiepen company which founded Alpina to explore a new, Zagato-drawn avenue. Albeit one still with a BMW at its core.

Prior to the BMW takeover, Alpinas were built in Buchloe, a small town in deepest Bavaria. Well, not deepest Bavaria – it is possible to go slightly further south – but certainly far enough down to get Krampus at Christmas.

But the new dawn means production will be fully integrated into “select BMW Group plants that have been comprehensively enabled to meet the high standards expected of this new and exclusive brand,” we’re told. Buchloe will be used to support the parts and maintenance of classic Alpina models.

Before BMW took the reins, Alpina made Ferraris and Rolls-Royces look mass-produced. You were looking at about 1,700 or so cars a year, giving you some indication of their build process. We don’t expect BMW Alpina to change this much – the focus is still very much on exclusively made cars to very bespoke specs.

Another ‘before the BMW takeover’ caveat. Sorry. But, um, before the BMW takeover, Alpina made petrol and/or diesel versions of the BMW 3, 4, 5 and 8 Series, as well as the X3, X4, and X7.

The petrol-powered cars got a ‘B’ prefix, given that Benzin is Deutsche for petrol, while the diesel ones got a ‘D’. For diesel, you see: Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the compression-ignition engine, was German. Pop the number of the corresponding BMW on the end, and an X in front if it’s an SUV, and you have your Alpina.

It hasn’t always been the case – take the late-eighties B11, based on a 7 Series – but it’s settled into a fairly straightforward pattern since, besides diesel versions getting a little ‘S’ suffix.

And now that old Alpina is making Zagato coupes, and new Alpina sits in-house with BMW? We’re not entirely sure what comes next – but rumour suggests an ultra-luxurious 7 Series will kick things off. BMW’s Maybach, if you will. Only a lot less horrid to look at, we hope.

We’re sorry, sir, this isn’t that kind of establishment. If you’re looking for something cheap and German, can we suggest Volkswagen, or maybe a Trabant?

Yes, sir, we understand that you’d still like to proceed and we’re sorry to have caused offence. The cheapest we can do is the D3S, for £63,500. Of course, sir, that is quite a bit of money, but perhaps sir hasn’t been made fully aware of what this establishment offers in exchange for such sums.

What’s that, sir? You’d like to know our most expensive option? Just for reference, you say? Very well, sir – one moment, please. Ah, yes, that’s going to be the XB7, for £149,500. Correct, sir; not many people do choose that option here, but we hear it’s vastly popular over in America.

Given that Alpina’s metier is to create exclusive, executive expresses with effortless speed, there’s not exactly a shortage of quick ones throughout its history. If you were to run a top 10 list of fastest Alpinas, every single one would be on the speedy side of 200mph, and even the list of Alpinas that are (or were) the fastest car in their segment over the years is extensive enough to warrant its own top 10.

So with that in mind, how surprised are you that the fastest Alpina is actually a title shared by the B5, B6 and B7? Helpfully (or very much not so, depending on your frame of reference), the old 6 Series that the B6 was based on is now gone, and Alpina looks to be closing the book on the B7 for good.

Which leaves the B5 – a 4.4-litre, twin-turbo V8 version of the 5 Series that a) can hit 205mph, and b) offers the single hardest decision ever presented to prospective car buyers: the B5, or the M5?

Hand on heart, we honestly don’t know how we’d choose between them, barring the fact that you can get the B5 as an estate – if you’re willing to accept a paltry 202mph top speed. Yeah, we’ll live.

Perhaps this is a bit more speculative than you’re used to in articles like these, but we must postulate about the knock-on effects of the BMW buyout.

In terms of its ‘best moment’, being bought outright by BMW is an absolute affirmation of Alpina’s craft, and the reputation it developed from that craft. From the outset, Alpina’s road cars have had a je ne sais quoi that’s been both steadfast and steadfastly unique; a quiet, genteel presence that belies just how big a right hook they can deliver if pushed.

Alpina’s shown that true authenticity can still beget profits, even in a world fake enough to give Holden Caulfield an aneurysm. And, if you’ll allow us to wax properly lyrical for a moment, that there’s more than one route to automotive nirvana.

And after the carrot comes the stick.

Look, the jury’s still out on what the future holds for Alpina now that BMW calls the shots. Certainly a bit of the leftfield/skunkworks/doing something different appeal of an Alpina is gone. No longer the insouciantly creative kid at the back of class, it’s now a prefect.

The fact the Bovensiepen family were so quick to tread their own, new path (craftily beating BMW to the reveal of its first in-house Alpina) suggests they still see value in their own way of doing things.

Considering what we’ve come to expect of Alpina – massive speed without giving up a modicum of comfort – it’s still kind of jarring to remember that Alpina’s had more racing success than companies that wear their sporting aspirations (or indeed pretensions) like a badge of honour.

Racing legends Niki Lauda and James Hunt are just a couple of the seriously fast and phenomenally talented drivers who’ve driven Alpina race cars, but the real mark of Alpina’s ability has to be its success at notoriously difficult endurance racing.

Doing a lap of Spa-Francorchamps at race pace without crashing is a feat. Doing 301 of these in a row, using the kind of tyre and brake tech we had back in 1970, is some kind of miracle. Yet that’s what a BMW-Alpina 2800CS did in 1970, driving more than 2,640 miles in the process and beating the second-placed (and third, and fourth) Alfa GTAm by more than seven miles. Perhaps needless to say, we trust Alpina with that whole ‘going quickly, safely’ bit.

Like quite a few others, Alpina doesn’t do that whole ‘concept that explores the future design direction for the brand’ kind of guff. If you’re looking at something Alpina’s designed, let alone built, you can be pretty much positive that you’ll see a road-going version before too long. Well, at least in theory – they’re rarer than Ferraris, after all.

So if we’re going to talk about an Alpina concept, we have to shift the goalposts on the whole ‘concept’ part. Duly shifted, we can now happily and unreservedly state that the best concept Alpina ever had was to marry the pace of the current BMW M5 with the utility of the 5 Series estate and dress it in the reserved panache that’s really become Alpina’s stock-in-trade. It’s the B5 Touring, in case so much was not already obvious.

If you were to describe Alpina to someone, you’d probably go wrong somewhere in the first sentence. No judgement on you, your character or your knowledge of deep automotive niches, either – it’s just too easy to do.

So, here’s a first pass at explaining Alpina: ‘Oh, they’re a German company that tunes BMWs.’ Bzzzt. Wrong. Alpina is actually recognised by the German Federal Ministry of Transport as a manufacturer in its own right, and has been since the 1980s – such is the depth of its work, and of its relationship with BMW. That Alpina is entrusted to actually build, finish and sell cars based on BMW mechanicals has always set it apart from any number of tuners, as supremely talented as so many of them are.