2007 BMW Alpina B7 Road Test

Alpina does things differently. Often mistaken for being another Bavarian tuner of BMWs, they’re actually a standalone manufacturer that’s highly integrated within the brand to the degree that its cars roll off the same assembly line as stock BMWs, almost completely finished. Comparing their product lineup to BMW’s, Alpina favors forced aspiration through superchargers and turbos, and almost the entire product lineup comes with their Switchtronic automatic transmission, something they’ve put their heart and soul into developing. It’s forgivable if you’ve not heard of Alpina, because up until this point the 46 year old company has only officially sold one previous reworked BMW in North America, a limited-run Z8 roadster that featured that same Switch-Tronic automatic transmission. Though the beautiful Z8 didn’t exactly make it a household name, Alpina is at least returning in the biggest and stateliest way possible – in a high-performance 7-Series sedan. Despite being the practical opposite of what BMW’s own M-division stands for, Alpina was officially selected by BMW to purvey the ultimate 7.

Reputation is critically important to BMW, so if the B7 were to wear the blue and white roundel it would need to be top-notch stuff. But a question worth considering is why didn’t BMW do a high-performance 7 of its own? Although the 7-Series is one of the best vehicles in the segment from a driving perspective, the usual M treatment just wouldn’t work with car. A lightweight, hardcore 7-Series a la M Coupe or M3 – say, one with a high-revving 6.0-liter V12 engine derived from the M5, plus SMG and an active differential – might appeal to a select few enthusiasts, but it wouldn’t to most buyers of $115,000 luxury sedans. Dare I say it, but it sounds like a veritable disaster in the making. Buyers of this sort of vehicle want shocking performance without the testosterone-fueled aggression.

To get this right blend, have a closer look at B7’s heart. It doesn’t use the 4.8-liter direct injected, double VAONS, Valvetronic, ultra-advanced V8 engine that BMW currently fits to the 750i as a starting point, but instead Alpina has gone old-school with an engine and some technology that’s tried, tested and true. The mill found under its hood is the old 4.4-liter V8 found on the pre-facelifted 745i and others, yet one that’s been heavily reworked. Bore and stroke might be the same, but the compression ratio is lower, and some of the internal components are stronger, however the key element is the near silent Nautilus-type supercharger, which is primarily responsible for its 500 horsepower rating.

At 1,100 rpm, the supercharger starts to work its wonders – 400 rpm later almost 300 lb-ft is available, and at its peak, 516 lb-ft is at the driver’s disposal shortly thereafter, which is more torque than the six liter, direct-injected V12-powered 760 has without the extra weight bearing down over the front wheels. Alpina also makes its own special radiator, which is comprised of elements to cool the coolant, steering rack, transmission and more. It’s starting to make sense now isn’t it? This wasn’t a case of on-spot brutality, the performance it set out to generate was premeditated. The supercharged engine’s instantaneous delivery of face-peeling acceleration feels a lot more like a much bigger motor, but the car it sits in does something that some of its rivals can’t do, handle with enthusiasm.


Part of the fun about the big B7 is its ability to cope, and not just with high speeds, but with corners as well. Whereas big, sporting sedans it competes with have been tweaked to deliver more feel and more involvement, the B7 goes beyond its call of duty by feeling truly alive. Its steering is the right blend of sharpness and effortlessness, and it lets the right amount of road feel filter through without impinging on the levels of comfort. It’s also free of some of BMW’s techno inventions like Active Steering, creating the most direct path between wheel and fingertips, power assistance aside. There may be smoother riding cars in its class, but the intrinsic qualities about how the B7 drives tell you that the people behind it had a passion for driving. As such, the B7 is as light on its toes as a 4,400 pound car has any right being, promoting the ability to float like a butterfly or sting like a bee at the driver’s leisure.

Of the big, fast sedans that I’ve encountered the B7 just might be the best to drive. What’s remarkable about it isn’t necessarily the way it leaps off the line, or how composed it is through the bends, but how it does its business without resorting to an often ill-judged air suspension system. Instead it uses the dynamic and instantaneous nature of real springs and dampers combined with its Active Roll Stabilization system. Instead of having its anti-roll bars linked to the opposing side, they’re linked to a computer-controlled torsion box. When you start to crank up the volume on your driving, the car instantly steps up its game, applying tension to the anti-roll bar, which allows it to resist body lean. However, when the car travels in a straight line, the system decouples allowing suspension travel. What ends up happening is that the car becomes stiff only when it needs to be, and because the springs and dampers still act like springs and dampers, it lacks the aftershock and lumpiness that’s plagued Audi’s sporting S8.

A huge amount of the B7’s success as a sports car must be credited to its tires. They’re not off-the-rack tires either, as they were developed in special collaboration with Michelin. The front 245-width and rear 285-width non-runflat Pilot Sports literally stick to the road as if the car were welded there. Their grip isn’t infinite though, a reality that can be tested by stomping on the throttle while in motion, which causes the stability control to freak out as it tames the rear tires. Even once moving at a decent rate of speed, if it’s wet out the stability control system will pare down the number of ponies hitting pavement, even in third gear. The tires also allow the brakes, sourced from the 760Li, to maximize their Herculean stopping strength, which is no less as important a matter than handling with a car as big and fast as this.

But for all of its fury and hard-charging action, the interior of the B7 is a world of calm. The noise and the physical rush is insulated, wrapped in layers of Myrtle wood, glove-soft leather and Alcantara. You are vitally aware that this is a fast machine in the way that it creeps up on things in the far off distance, and the way that the neon orange needle’s salutatory action is in your periphery as if it’s beckoning you forward with a casual wave, vivid against the dim blue glow of the gauges. Things in the B7 really are closer than they appear with or without your direct intention. It’s also an impeccably comfortable way to travel, physically shrinking the scale on maps, swallowing large passages of highways in big, leaping bounds. Heading out on the highway, the B7 downplays any degree of speed; you’ll soon wonder why North America can’t have limitless autobahns too. The big
Alpina sedan would make full use of it too; unlike other BMWs it doesn’t oblige to Germany’s “gentleman’s” rule of 155 mph speed limitations. This big boy will hit the far side of the moon, or, in this case, 186 mph making it faster – much faster – than even the vastly more expensive Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG.

The key to extracting the most from the car has all to do with the blue and green stitched three-spoke steering wheel. Besides being sourced from the 5-Series, and wrapped in Lavalina leather with parallel grain (less resistance on the fingertips, I am told) it is different from the standard wheel with some significance, much of which has to do with the giant plus and minus symbols stitched into spokes three and nine. While the stock ‘wheel offers manual controls in the form of a two-way thumb paddle, the Alpina features two little nodes, wrapped in leather. The Switchtronic gearbox is at its core, the same fundamental ZF 6HP26 gearbox as the regular 7-Series, but it’s all in the way that it’s been set up. The sport mode, selected on the steering wheel, is uncannily sharp in its actions, sharp to the point of choppiness; some of the edge can be taken off by using the manual mode. Any way you choose to use it, it’s a very good transmission, but Alpina’s inner workings just go to show that despite this gearbox being the industry standard, the right tuning can change things.

The B7 is by far the best looking 7-Series. I never minded the 7’s uniquely bold looks, but the B7 further capitalizes on its eye-catching appearance. Where its rivals are subdued in appearance, the B7 wears its skirt kit proudly, stamped at the front in Alpina font; much the same goes for the hefty rear spoiler. While it looks the business, there’s no question it is present in the name of functionality. It just so happens to make for one commanding looking vehicle. The B7 wears the traditional radial spoke alloy wheel, but they’ve been updated with a 21st century twist. At 21 inches in diameter, they’re huge, but secondly they don’t have a visible air stem. It’s been hidden in the center of the wheel, covered by the cap, which improves both styling and reportedly, high-speed stability.

There isn’t much more you can ask of the B7 in terms of equipment. It can be dressed up just like any other 7-Series with goodies that will better coddle and relax its occupants, like heated, ventilated and massaging seats, full rear blinds and gizmos like night vision display, rear-seat entertainment and active cruise control. But there aren’t any further performance upgrades, not at least from BMW. A limited slip differential could potentially help to better harness those 500 horses in the wet when aggressively driven, but the B7 is a car that’s designed to be driven differently than an M Coupe or Roadster. The fact that the stability control defeat is hidden in the labyrinth that is iDrive might just be the ultimate hint to leave well enough alone.

The amount of engineering and tuning that went into the B7 is well worth the $115,000 price of admission, which is fairly reasonable considering the performance and its outright usability. Consider that the degree to which everything has been perfected and integrated is so high that the car is warranted directly by BMW, it’s a sign of true confidence. The only problem with the car is that this, the finest 7-Series is also the rarest. Less than a hundred have been allocated for the U.S., and all have been spoken for this year. But those lucky enough to get their hands on one of these Secret Sevens have the ability to beam that they own the best 7-Series ever made, which perhaps is the greatest acclimation of all.