ALPINA B3 Test Drive since 2007 compartment

Life in the blue-green light

Actually, this village is called booze. Two years ago, the receiving party simply tried to mislead us, calling the desired settlement more smoothed booze. So that the Russian person is not distracted by the secondary, that is, for a drink. Because the wine business for Alpina is still secondary. At least, the automobile show room is located right there, behind the sliding doors of the central entrance, and you will have to go down to the wine basement on the elevator. Burkard Bovensipen for twenty years as a car prefers an elevator. But without his participation, no model still starts into production: he is not only the founding father, but also the main test pilot.
Although the pilot has already exceeded seventy, Alpina engineers, carefully mentioned in the booze from all over Germany, are listened not only to respect for his advice. Burkard in his youth managed to bring BMW 1500 to mind, creating a engine with a double carburetor Weber. It was not for nothing that the car press sprinkled praise for a technician student, even in BMW they recognized his talent, preserving the factory guarantee that he had advanced, and then giving the right to use his car giant conveyor for the production of BMW Alpina.
Cooperation has been going on for more than four decades. And no matter how much it would be explained in Alpina that the benefit of it is mutual, it is impossible to comprehend that this family manufactory can be useful for a car giant. Here you will still have to drive the product of this cooperation.
We pass by the representative B7, luxurious B6, dynamic B5 and stop our view on the new BMW Alpina B3 Bi-Turbo compartment. Just like a sedan and a convertible, it is built on the basis of 335 BMW models. Alpina built her first engine with a turbocharger in 1978, then on the basis of the fifth and sixth episodes, today for the first time on the basis of a threek.
From just BMW cars with Alpina, not only the engine is distinguished. In the booze, a cooling system is assembled, as well as a number of other key details. All this is sent to the BMW plant and on the conveyor is installed on serial Bavarian cars. Then the matter remains only with the original aerodynamic body kit and the charming of the salon.
If you want to call it tuning, well, if you please. But here it is called production and poked under the hood for its own seven -digit VIN. In addition, Alpina recently concluded a new contract with BMW. One and a half million euros of investments and in the territory of the plant are erected a large (compared to other buildings) two -story building to expand the design and testing departments. In the near future, a modest manufactory is going to pick up part of work on BMW engines from Munich.
The first thing I want to do is to go behind the wheel of B3 BI-TURBO to go to the autobahn. Moreover, 35 from Alpenstrasse, where Alpina is located, before leaving the A96 only two kilometers of the way, and now it is a speed road. In some of its areas, the upper speed limit with which cars fly through it is not limited. One of these sites is just in the booze area. And this does not even seem to be a coincidence.
The attractiveness of Germany for motorists around the world is that here you can satisfy your thirst for speed without violating traffic rules. And here we are accelerating. First up to hundreds, then up to two and further. More precisely, closer to the maximum possible 285 km/h. Until the world around us becomes colored stripes, the gray stretches, and nearby is green and blue, and it is these two colors that are branded by Alpina. In memory, the story of Burkard Bovensipen immediately pops up about how the other day he managed to test Bugatti Veyron on the track. He did not have enough 3 km/h to reach the maximum possible speed. That is, he accelerated to 397 km/h, and the only thing that surprised him was the fuel consumption: at such a speed, gasoline would have been enough for only fifteen minutes. And the B3 Bi-Turbo has a passage of 500 to 600 km ... But here the leisurely burgher was rebuilt on the left lane, in which we rushed so briskly. You won’t surprise him with an autobahn, and we had to experience how good the B3 BI-TURBO brakes are, urgently slowing our car from honest 280 to 120 km/h.
Returning from this swift test, we saw a road worker who carefully withdraws on the asphalt with the help of a huge stencil the number 30 is the restriction of the speed of movement in residential areas in Germany. And this, by the way, is the step of the speedometer scale on all BMW Alpina, exactly 30 km/h, and not 20 km/h, as is usually customary. And we calmly go past at the set speed. We even smile at this worker. Not only because we have already received adrenaline on the BMW Alpina technical passport. But also because with all its acceptance and abrasion, B3 Bi-Turbo is comfortable at low speeds, which can not be said about most sportsmen for whom the movement in a dense city stream is true mockery of the driver.
The reason for the flexibility of B3 BI-TURBO in a six-cylinder in a row engine of 3.0 liters with double turbocharges. Acceleration to hundreds of 4.8 seconds. Exactly the same as the BMW M3 compartment, which has a more powerful eight -cylinder motor with a volume of 4.0 liters under the hood. And if Emka has a maximum torque of 400 nm at 3900 rpm, then B3 has a moment of 500 nm already at 3800 rpm.
In other words, although M3 and B3 are made on the basis of the same car, in fact they are very different. That is why in BMW they are so loy to Alpina cars. They do not produce competition, but make the lineup more diverse. In addition, it is also important that Emka is still produced only with a mechanical gearbox, and the B3 BI-TURbo has a six-speed sports machine with the possibility of mechanical gear shifts on the steering wheel. Who argues that this only adds comfort to the car.

Convenience is what we want in life from our cars, apartments and further on the list who has what. Is it convenient for you to sit here, doesn’t blow? In the evening, the dear Burkard Bovensipen asked in the evening, pouring white wine into a glass of white wine. And, it seems that he has long been speeding any speed for dinner in a circle of pretty girls in his favorite restaurant. Maybe that's why all BMW Alpina is not only comfortable, but also a little home. Yes, they have over the hundreds of less than 5 seconds, and the maximum speed is three hundred. But sitting so softly in them: the skin of such a thin dressing rarely when sheathed seats of sportsmen. And these plus and minus on the steering wheel indicating an increase and decrease in the transmission during manual speed switching, so sweet in their manual work, as if embroidery on the grandmother's tablecloth. Although sometimes stitches on it resemble road markings. And next to the stripes, here the gray stretches, and nearby is green and blue.

Abstracts after
1. The dealer BMW Alpina, a car, opens in Moscow on Kutuzovsky Prospekt a new showroom, the GDK will be presented all BMW Alpina models.
2. The Russian buyer can go to the booze and see how his car is being made. The program has a tour of the enterprise, lunch and wine Alpina as a gift.
3. Once Alpina had his own vineyard in Hungary, which was sold due to the fact that it was impossible to control the process remotely.
4. On one side of the house of Burkarada, the factory itself, on the other, parking of brand new BMW Alpina.
BMW Alpina B3 Bi-Turbo Coupe
6-cylinder engine in a row, gasoline
Raboche volume (cubic cub) 2979
Power (L.S. at rpm) 360 / 5500-6000
Moment (nm at rpm) 500 / 3800-5000
The rear drive
Gearbox automatic, 6-speed
Length/width/height (mm) 4580/1782/1395
Equipped mass (kg) 1560
Maximum speed (km/h) 285
Acceleration to 100 km/h (c) 4.8
Fuel consumption is average, (l/100 km) 9.7
Price in Moscow () from 74 900
Text: Anna Kilimnik
Photo: Mark Kozhuk and Alpina Burkard Bovenspiepen GmbH

 

A source: "Autopilot"