608-HP Alpina B5 Turbo Is Here to Spice Up the New BMW 5 Series

There's even a wagon!
www.thedrive.com

Though nothing official has come out from BMW regarding the upcoming M5, Alpina already has its go-fast version of the recently-released mid-range Bimmer and is ready to show it to the world. 

The BMW Alpina B5 BiTurbo, announced Tuesday during the Geneva Motor Show, is a 608-horsepower version of the new 5 Series. To make that power, the car is packed with a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 that sends power to all four wheels using BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system and something called an “Integral Active Steering” rear axle, which helps the car get around corners. The B5 also uses a modified ZF eight-speed transmission unit from the normal 5 Series. The car rides on electronically-adjustable dampers and 20-inch wheels with Pirelli P Zeros. The result is a 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds.

To give you an idea of what that means, the already-unveiled BMW M550i does 0-62 in a full four seconds, and that is already four tenths faster than the outgoing M5. So this thing hauls. In fact, it will keep hauling until it hits its 205-mile-per-hour top speed. 

To answer your question, yes—it’s available as a wagon, although that model does 0-62 in a completely disgraceful 3.6 seconds and has a top speed of just 202 MPH. What a shame (/s).

It’s unclear if either of these models will head to America, but either way, these are damn cool. 

Check it out below.

BMW ALPINA B5 BITURBO thumbnail
BMW ALPINA B5 BITURBO

Aaron Brown

Staff Editor

Aaron was previously a contributing writer with Jalopnik and has also written for Business Insider covering cars. When he's not in the office writing the news, you'll probably find him thrashing a beater car around a RallyCross.