The Alpina philosophy

Alpina has arrived in Australia, officially announcing last month the first in a range of exclusive grand touring models based on performance cars supplied by BMW.

At the time, motoring.com.au caught up with Andreas Bovensiepen, the son of Alpina founder, Burkard Bovensiepen. No longer a young man himself, Andreas Bovensiepen remains a vigorous supporter of the brand’s work.

The company started out by modifying the humble BMW 1500 sedan, Andreas revealed, and since then Alpina has broadened its sales base and established itself as a niche manufacturer – not modifier – with particular expertise tweaking BMWs.

Burkhard was a “private customer” owning a BMW 1500, which was, according to Andreas, “quite a lame duck” with just 70hp in standard tune. A carburettor upgrade for the 1500 “was quite successful” and the newly established firm sold its first 100 kits and “the momentum kept going” with Bovensiepen selling new kits for the BMW 1600 and 2002 models.

“These were perfect cars” as a base for Alpina to enter motor sport, says Andreas. Alpina won the German touring car championship in 1970, 73, and 77.

Nikki Lauda drove for Alpina in touring cars at the time, on the proviso that he could drive as a Buchloe resident, rather than as an Austrian (his homeland), so he could avoid compulsory military service, which would have conflicted with his racing career.

Alpina's support for Lauda paid for his F1 career in his early days with teams like March and BRM.

In 1973 Lauda competed in a six-hour touring car race at the Nordschleife against the famous Hans Stuck and other now household F1 names like Fittpaldi and Stuart behind Lauda, who started the race from pole position.

Lauda's touring car career ended in 1974, when he was offered an F1 contract by Ferrari, but on the strict stipulation that his professional motor racing would be confined to F1 and the Ferrari team.

Bovensiepen Senior was very conservative in his sales ambitions for the Alpina brand, often telling his son that “500 cars for the world is enough”. This, according to Andreas is one of the factors in the long wait for Australian consumers to be offered the exclusive brand with true factory support (from both Alpina and BMW).

“We were not able to go to Australia or America, but when I entered the company after I worked seven years for BMW AG... I saw that we had to expand our markets...” he said.

America came first, but Australia had to wait for a viable business case from a corporate entity such as the In Motion Group – the company behind two BMW dealerships in the Melbourne suburbs of Doncaster and Bundoora... and now the national distribution channel for Alpina.

Alpina's philosophy is not to compete with BMW's M Cars, but rather to supply very luxurious, very refined cars that are easy to drive and offer performance that's comparable with an M Cars counterpart, but ultimately placing reliability high among the company's goals. That's why the B4 Bi-Turbo has an eight-speed ZF transmission rather than the dual-clutch transmission of the M4.

Bovensiepen stresses that Alpina is not like a typical aftermarket tuning house. Because the company has so much close involvement with BMW during the development phase with a new model, the Alpina counterpart is essentially designed and engineered in parallel. In this there is an obvious parallel with HSV.

“You cannot compare Alpina with a tuner,” Bovensiepen says. The aftermarket process for most tuners (companies that modify road cars after they've been sold to a customer) can be very expensive for the vehicle owner and may involve changing more than just a handful of parts for something approaching the holistic results Alpina can achieve before the car even reaches the buyer.

“Alpina is built up to 80 per cent on the BMW assembly line,” says Bovensiepen, but final production takes place at the Alpina facility in Buchloe.

Suggest to Alpina staff that they are to M Cars what Brabus is to AMG, however, and the atmosphere turns subtly but distinctly chilly.

As far as Alpina’s vehicle development protocol is concerned, the company conducts its testing at the Nurburgring and the 12km track at Nardo in Italy. But before that, there’s plenty of work to go bringing the Alpina engine to reality.

Andreas explained that the Bi-Turbo engine in the B4 is not merely a rehash of BMW’s N55 (twin-turbo) six-cylinder.

“It's a completely new engine.

“BMW casts it. BMW has an engine production... casting facility. It's funny, if you [say] that's an old engine, but the engine is very good for high power.

“The M engine has a certain base in an N55 engine – the S55 – but in some parts the same engine.

“We have a bi-turbo engine, and therefore we needed a block, where we could fit two turbos – and have the connections for the oil and water for the turbos...

“Therefore we needed a new block, and BMW was so friendly to cast this block for us.

“Of course we have to engineer the engine bay... [and] the peripheral engine parts…

“We are lucky that we have such a close working [relationship with] BMW, because about two years in advance of a new model we get the CAD data, and our engineers look in [the data] to see how much space we have in the engine compartment, how much space we have for the exhaust system in the car.

“Then we have a very close process, which at least needs one year of time...

Alpina often uses the same mounting points for its exhaust system to simplify the process of building an Alpina model on the same line as the standard BMW donor car.

The pilot build for Alpina models is usually run on a Friday afternoon or Saturday to ensure the lowest possible impact on mainstream BMW production.

Bovensiepen says that Alpina is “100 per cent independent” but enjoys a closely integrated relationship with BMW – albeit one that Alpina pays for.

“It's a business case for BMW as well,” he explained.

BMW keeps Alpina in the loop for forward planning purposes, but the engineers make no special concessions for Alpina. There's no element of tail wagging the dog in the alliance.

“We have a direct line to project engineers... and they show us what will change in the future.

Bovensiepen says that Alpina's target is to have its updated model launched and out the door within two months of BMW's donor car.

“We cannot sell a pre-facelift car through BMW as a new one.

The engine in the 7 Series-based B7 is a development of the 4.4-litre N62 engine, says Bovensiepen. This engine, like the N55 derivative in the B3/B4 models, is no longer in production for mainstream BMW models.

Induction is by means of two bespoke twin-scroll turbochargers “for very good response”, with two large-diameter channels “on the hot side to accelerate the turbine quite quickly”. Mahle pistons, large intercoolers and a revised exhaust system all contribute to the enhanced power output. The six-cooler system is prefabricated in Alpina's plant and delivered to the 7 Series production plant at Dingolfing for incorporation in the finished production.

In terms of relative complexity, Bovensiepen admits that both the B7 and the smaller B3 and B4 models are challenging to build, but manufacturing the smaller cars is just that much more involved.

“This [the B3/B4] is quite complex, because we have a specially-cast crankcase, we have two turbochargers, and here we have a gearbox step up to a bigger gearbox...”

The standard ZF transmission in the 340i is an 8HP45 unit, but the B3 and B4 need an 8HP70 unit.

“So we have a bigger gearbox that's not available in other BMW 3 and 4 Series, but we manage to integrate it [in the production process].”

All that said, there are additional aspects of the B7 that gain further tweaking from Alpina, including the company's recalibration of the active integral steering. That recalibration takes into account the 21-inch Michelin tyres and Alpina alloy wheels, says Bovensiepen. Michelin is invited to assist with the tuning of the B7's suspension for ride comfort and the French brand’s tyres were selected on the basis of being conventional tyres, not run-flats. Apart from enhancing the car's ride quality they are lighter. In turn – so to speak – the alloy wheels are also lighter, and the combined unsprung weight saving is in the order of 4.5 to 5kg per wheel.

“Compared to a cast wheel and a run-flat [tyre], you save five kilos per wheel and tyre, which is a lot.

“It feels like a 5 [Series]... one class lower, handling-wise.”

A start date for the B5 is not set in concrete for Australia, says Bovensiepen.

“We will have our world premiere for the new B5 at the Geneva motor show. And of course we have the intention of bringing the B5 to Australia as well but there's no decision so far as to when the B5 will hit Australia.”

The B6 is too far along in its model life cycle to bring to Australia, and the B6 Gran Coupe is all-wheel drive only, which rules out the car for right-hand drive markets.

If Alpina takes off in Australia, just 15 sales a month, nationally, would yield 180 cars sold here per annum. That would increase Alpina’s global sales by 10 per cent, which suggests that the Aussie market could be quite important to the brand. And, given the success of BMW M Cars and Mercedes-AMG, it also begs the question: why did it take so long for Alpina to set up shop here?