2015 BMW Alpina B6 Gran Coupe

2015 BMW Alpina B6 Gran Coupe 2015 BMW Alpina B6 Gran Coupe
Instrumented Test From the January 2015 issue of Car and Driver

To drive a 1980s M3 is to be amazed by its relative softness compared with today’s hard-edged, dual-clutch asphalt scalpels. “Scalpel” might even be the wrong metaphor. Today’s M cars often seem more like chisels: heavy, capable, rigid-feeling things. But what if BMW dialed that speedy numbness back a notch? Horsepower swapped for torque, and BMW’s still-funky dual-clutch transmission traded for a tight eight-speed slushbox? To appease the snowbelt traction-philes, what if it came with four-wheel drive? You’d wind up with something like the BMW Alpina B6.

You’ll lay out a $1600 premium over the $116,650 M6 Gran Coupe for Alpina’s ­version, whose snail-huffed 4.4-liter V-8 offers but 540 horsepower to the M6’s 560. Yet, while the stock M gets by with 500 pound-feet of torque, the Alpina metes out 540. The healthier twist finds itself routed through BMW’s xDrive system, not available on the M6, and meets the pavement courtesy of 255- and 285-section tires wrapped around 20-inch versions of Alpina’s trademark 20-spoke wheels.

The combination of reduced power and extra weight brings the big four-door to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, two tenths slower than the last M6 Gran Coupe we tested. Horsepower and the M6’s 373-pound weight advantage also put it through the quarter-mile four tenths sooner, or 11.7 seconds to the 12.1 of the Alpina. On the skidpad, the M, with 10 millimeters more tire all the way around, again takes the Alpina. The stock M posts 0.93 g of lateral acceleration to the B6’s 0.92.

The Alpina, in a sense, is more in line with the philosophy of modern AMG products. Taut, but not inelastic. Performance that is monstrous but not violently showy.

The interior follows the exterior’s ­subtle, full-custom theme. Our tester’s cabin featured burnt-amber leather with red-toned burl trim. The overall effect recalls the original shark-nose 6-series, a car that certainly ferried its share of ad hoc couples home from key-basket parties in its day. Instead of the familiar spinning-prop roundel on the steering wheel, the B6 features Alpina’s fantastically anachronistic carb-and-crankshaft crest, a nod to the company’s early days as a supplier of hop-up kits.

In a time when it seems that the once-exclusive M badge has wound up slathered across everything from barnstorming coupes to breakfast cereals, the B6 offers the soupçon of specialness that M cars once enjoyed. And if it’s not quite as quick, it’s still certainly quick enough.