The New 2017 Alpina B7 Is One Big, Badass BMW
Can your limo do 0–60 in 3.6 seconds?
The 445-horsepower BMW 750i is already a bangin’ blast on a back road, but even its class-leading dynamics aren’t so good that they couldn’t be improved by adding, oh, 155 more horses and 110 lb-ft of torque. Well, wonder of wonders, guess what BMW has blessed us with: A brand-new Alpina B7 that does exactly that.
At the heart of the 2017 Alpina B7 lies a twin-turbo 4.4-liter V-8 that’s been cranked up to 600 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque; in conjunction with the eight-speed automatic and standard all-wheel drive, that’s enough to blast this full-size four-door from 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds en route to a top speed of 193 mph. That prodigious output doesn’t come at the expense of tractability, though. The twin-scroll turbos are designed to spool up quickly and efficiently, allowing the B7’s engine to generate 494 lb-ft of torque at only 2,000 rpm.
But as with every Alpina, there’s more to differentiate the B7 from its regular Bimmer sibling than just a juicier powertrain. The adjustable air suspension teams up with BMW’s word soup of ride and handling technologies—Active Roll Stabilization, Dynamic Damper Control, Active Comfort Drive with Road Preview, Integral Active Steering, Driving Dynamics Control (not to be confused with the aforementioned Dynamic Damper Control)...the list goes on. Describing the ways they interact could fill a book, so here’s the TL;DR version: The Alpina B7’s ride and handling can be dialed in anywhere from relaxed luxo-barge to taut, dynamic sports sedan, even beyond the abilities of the regular 7-Series to do so.
On top of all that, the Alpina B7 also picks up a snazzy body kit understated by the standards of pretty much every other car making 600 horsepower. Chin and trunk spoilers, a pair of infinity-symbol-shaped tailpipes, and a set of Alpina’s trademark 21-spoke wheels set it apart from more proletarian 7-Series models, along with Alpina-only shades of blue and green.
Inside, the B7 is every bit as elegant as a top-of-the-line luxury sedan with a six-figure price tag should be, with seats and steering wheel draped in Lavalina leather trim held together with green-and-blue stitching. And while the 7-Series has traded in traditional gauges for digital screen, the B7 pays tribute to the classic blue gauge faces of Alpinas past by recreating them when the car’s in Comfort Mode. Switch to Sport Mode, though, and they’re swapped out for modern, racier “dials” with a large digital speed readout.
As for exactly what that six-figure pricetag will be, BMW says it’ll let us know closer to the car’s on-sale date this fall. If you want to start socking away for it now, though, expect to pay at least somewhere around the last Alpina B7’s $135,000 base price.