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The World's Fastest Estate

5th January 2018 5:17pm

The World's Fastest Estate

Brace yourself for the world’s fastest load-lugger.

Simon Hacker answers your questions.

What’s this?

Alpina, those devilish tweakers of BMW’s finest fare, have been busy. The team that gave us the legendary 3.0 CSI this week reveals its craziest ever project: an estate that cruises at 200mph.

Will it make my Labrador have kittens?

Probably. In fact, the ALPINA B5 Bi-Turbo Touring, based on BMW’s 5 Series, will steam on to 205mph. And the sprint to 62mph takes 3.5 seconds. It’s all yours for a cost-conscious £91,000, while the saloon version (which is quicker to 62mph by just 0.1 seconds, comes in at £89,000.

So what does that buy me?

Membership of the 200mph supercar club without leaving your granny at home. Both models, supplied with a range of bespoke interior options, are powered by ALPINA’s 608 hp V8, first seen in the B7 Bi-Turbo launched mid-2017. The engine is apparently a result of thousands of hours of development at ALPINA’s R&D centre and on roads from Death Valley to the Arctic Circle, the new B5 Bi-Turbo promises “a combination of comfort, performance and driving pleasure [that is] unrivalled by any other production saloon or estate.”

 

But what sort of customer will commit?

Smart ones, obviously. ALPINA GB’s Jonathan Noy puts it like this: “Our cars are for driving enthusiasts who value a blend off qualities that can only be delivered by immense attention to detail and a single-minded focus on one type of owner.” Working with just one powertrain and one chassis, ALPINA’s dynamics specialists have spent months honing the chassis, he says, “not hurling it around a race track, but simply driving as customers would, on roads, enjoying every mile however fast or slow.”

Is it money wisely spent?

I’d say yes, given ALPINA sells only around 100 cars in the UK annually. Check the eBay pages: they’re rarified stuff. And then there’s the intrinsic value. The B5 Bi-Turbo is an evolution of the latest (G30) BMW 5-Series, which provides the company with a state-of-the-art, high-technology development platform. Plus ALPINA’s 70-strong engineering team has received exceptional access to BMW design data and technical facilities as part of a relationship that reaches back to 1964. All current ALPINA BMWs also get a BMW-endorsed three year/120,000 mile warranty.

What’s their 200mph recipe?

Take one BMW 4.4 litre V8, increase the power and torque without compromising responsiveness, paying attention to airflow optimisation… Season with a wide-bore intake system for shorter intake paths and optimised radii to allow near-instant throttle response… Bin the existing turbochargers for two specially-developed, twin-scroll ones located between the cylinder banks, operating in parallel (to deliver up to 1.4 bar with minimum inertia… Enlarge the inlet and outlet diameters to further improve gas flow and… Enjoy the wide, flat torque curve and excellent throttle response even at low engine speeds. By 2,000rpm, the ALPINA V8 is already generating 670 Nm (494 lb ft) of torque, swelling to an astonishing 800 Nm (590 lb ft) plateau from 3,000 – 5,000 rpm.

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