Quote:
Originally Posted by m3alabama
That is actually not true. THe B3S e90 is not faster by any measure other than the typical low end torque arguement. There is a clear reason though why someone would buy an alpina over an M car in the e90 days because they may have wanted a forced induction engine but in superior trim.
However now with the next m3 being FI and essentially the same engine as the 335 with a lot more power and torque, than why would you go B3? No benefit as the handling would not be as good, comfort is no longer an issue as the m and adaptive suspension gives as much comfort as you would ever want.
To me the only car now that makes sense is the B7 as that is the only one you can't get an M car.
However Alpina cars in general no longer make sense to me. When the cars used to be naturally aspirated, then an ALpina was pretty special since it added a super charger and presented gains that were impossible to match from pretty much any tuner, especially since most companies would not come out with a supercharger system that quickly.
Now that they only tune the turbo engine, what is the point in going with an alpina car? For that much money its a total waste in my opinion as the gains can be had wiht 500 dollars. Their trim package and wheels and a few body parts are hardly worth paying 10s of thousands for.
I won't be surprised if Alpina goes out of business this next 5 years or atleast re-focuses their business to other aspects of non-bmws or maybe something different that I cannot even thinkn of right now
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Not true at all- Alpina is a manufacturer and not a "tuner". They have a full TUV emissions facility to test their own cars on and they also do testing for other brands. $500 chips are just to trick the car into performing better at a higher standard than they were designed to reliably do- that is not the same as what Alpina does. The B3 GT3 is faster than the E9X M3.
The cooling setups they make are intense and well beyond factory BMW. The suspension tuning is different than anything BMW offers and they co-developed the auto transmission (which they have patents for). Unlike "tuners" Alpina as a manufacturer tests everything to meet requirements for longevity and usability. They make everything much more robust than they really need to be.
Not to mention the bespoke nature of the cars- they are built to customer spec in all markets but the US (US doesn't get the custom interior due to crash testing requirements). They use the same grade leather as Rolls and you can have it dyed, trimmed, embossed basically however you want. The exhausts are co developed with Akro- so they sound great.
Exclusivity always comes at a premium- one that a lot of customers are interested in paying. They are growing rather than your suggestion they will fold up.
The drive character of an Alpina is very different than an M car as well not to mention the fact they love to make wagons... I am seriously debating getting a used Alpina B3 S.