Japan is not exactly a big market for Alpina. In the past 32 years, the BMW tuning house has sold just over 3300 cars there. On the other hand, Alpina is on track to sell just 1200 or so cars worldwide in 2011, so it doesn’t really have any big markets. And it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect Alpina to debut the two cars it unveiled in Tokyo in the U.S., since, well, neither one will be sold here. (No Alpina except for the B7 is.)
Still, cars that produce 532 hp deserve your attention, as do cars that are lime green. The former is why we’re telling you about the B6 Biturbo, the latter covers the B3 GT3. Fans of matte paint (so, everybody except people who own matte cars and know how hard it is to maintain a satisfactory finish) also will be pleased to note that the B6 coupe at the show is painted in Alpina’s signature blue, except without any shine. [Pause for high-fives.]
Blue Six
Like the exceptional B7, the B6 is powered by a tweaked version of BMW’s twin-turbo 4.4-liter V-8, which crams the turbos into the V rather than hanging them outside the heads like normal kids do. In this application, though, Alpina’s engine makes 532 hp, 32 more than in the B7. Torque doesn’t change, although, at 516 lb-ft, most would probably call it sufficient. This extra-beef burrito is backed up by an eight-speed automatic, chalking up another win over the B7, which only gets six ratios. Given the 4.3 seconds a B7 needed to hit 60 mph in our testing, the company’s claim of 4.4 for the B6 to get to 62 is almost certainly a few tenths conservative. Its top speed of 199 mph is just a heavy right foot away.
Alpina also futzes with the suspension, re-skins the interior, and fits its gorgeous 20-spoke wheels. At current exchange rates, the base price of about ¥20 million translates to around $255,000. The B6 will be sold as both a coupe and a convertible.
Little Green Man
The B3 GT3 is a celebration of Alpina’s overall victory in the German ADAC GT championship, where it competes against the likes of the Audi R8, the Mercedes-Benz SLS, and the Ferrari 458. The company campaigns a garish green B6 in the series, but that car is based on the last-gen 6-series. So its paint job was applied to a B3, which looks like a regular 3-series coupe but packs a twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six making M3 power: 405 horses and 398 lb-ft of torque. Zero to 62 mph is said to take 4.6 seconds, and top speed is a claimed 186 mph. Alpina will cap production at 99 tribute cars, each with a price tag starting around $167,000.
Alpina and BMW have their reasons for not selling Alpina products other than the B7 in the U.S., but we’ll blame at least part of it on the Lincoln Navigator and the Cadillac Escalade. On paper, Alpinas are a lot like M cars, only more understated; and the country that made the Gator and Slade icons doesn’t, as a whole, really grasp subtlety.
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