BMWCAR_0909_BMWALPINA_B3BiTurbo.pdf

32 BMW car

ALPINA B3 BATTLE

TRUE GRIP

Alpina’s B3 Bi-Turbo is an awesome car and one of the company’s

finest but does the addition of four-wheel drive make it even better?

Words: Sebastian de Latour Photography: Max Earey

SEPTEMBER 2009 33

Choose your weapon: aside from the

wheel designs both cars are identical.

Regular B3 wears Classics while four-

wheel drive Allrad sports Dynamics

The fact that you would really have to be pushing hard to feel the

advantage of four-wheel drive tells you everything you need to

know about how incredibly capable the two-wheel drive B3 is

34 BMW car

ALPINA B3 BATTLE

F rom the moment we read about the B3 Allrad

wheel drive BMWs but the fact is that winters tend to

be a lot more severe and as such there is far greater

demand for these models. In the UK it’s a different

story so from BMW’s point of view there’s little

financial sense in going to quite a lot of trouble to

create right-hand drive versions of its xDrive range of

cars. Because of this, it’s not really Alpina’s fault that

the company’s not offering its B3 Allrad in the UK –

the cost of converting the xDrive 3 Series platform to

right-hand drive would be astronomical. Still, that

hasn’t stopped us Brits from complaining but Alpina is

confident that the two models are so closely matched

that we’ll come away convinced that we’re not

missing out with the two-wheel drive B3.

The original plan was to visit the company’s Buchloe

base when the weather was cold and there was still a

smattering of snow up in the hills, which would have

enabled us to really put Allrad through its paces and

compare the two systems at their best and worst.

However the course of motoring journalism never did

run smooth so it’s actually late spring when we finally

manage to organise the trip and as I pull back the

curtains in my hotel room, I’m momentarily blinded by

the ferocious sun burning brightly in a cloudless sky.

Arse. Even a bit of rain would have been a welcome

sight but no – still, I shouldn’t be complaining as

we’ve got a day with a pair of sensational Alpinas,

some fantastic driving roads and the keys to one of

the B3s are on my bedside table. Let’s rock.

In case there was any doubt, the B3 Bi-Turbo is

Alpina’s version of the 335i and while a quick glance

at the spec box may cause some disappointment

when you realise that its outputs fall short of the sort

of figures that the various remapping companies are

achieving, the figures alone don’t tell the full story. An

Alpina is a fully-warranted car that has been produced

with the approval and co-operation of BMW and its for

this reason that the company has to be a lot more

conservative with the additional power that it extracts

from the BMW donor cars; it also has to be a lot more

careful how it goes about producing this extra power

because the resulting car has to be just as reliable as

– German for ‘All Wheel’ – we reckoned it

would be a serious weapon. The combination

of a torquey, 360hp twin-turbo engine mated

to BMW’s superb xDrive four-wheel drive

system and Alpina’s Switch-Tronic transmission would

make for a ballistic all-weather, cross-country machine

of epic proportions. A match made in heaven, surely?

Well, we’re here in Germany to find out.

It was the Alpina boys themselves who suggested

we come and drive the two- and four-wheel drive

versions of its superb B3 back-to-back in order to see

for ourselves that UK buyers really aren’t missing out,

despite what we may think. The first and only non-X

model BMW to be sold in the UK with four-wheel drive

was the E34 525iX and since then BMW has made a

conscious effort to market its cars in the UK as The

Ultimate Driving Machine, with advertising that always

focused on that famed 50:50 weight distribution and

the use of rear-wheel drive across the range. In

Europe and America you can buy all manner of four-

Left: Beautiful Alpina interior sets the B3 apart from the standard 3 Series with classic blue dials and numbered plaques (middle). Right: custom Alpina exhaust sounds fruity

SEPTEMBER 2009 35

the original. This is why Alpina has gone to rather

more trouble in creating the B3 than simply slapping

a remap on it and hoping for the best – the B3

boasts uprated Mahle pistons, an additional oil cooler

and a boost increase to 1.1bar to achieve its 360hp

output and a substantial 369lb ft of torque. This is

developed between 3800 and 5000rpm but you’ve

already got 294lb ft at your disposal from just

1300rpm – Alpina’s not kidding when it says the Bi-

Turbo offers V8-like performance. The company also

has a reputation for making cars that offer a blend of

ride and handling that rivals cannot match and with

the B3 the Alpina has once again worked its magic,

cherry picking a selection of suspension components

to create a unique setup that meets their exacting

criteria. Alpina also fits non-run-flat tyres to the B3,

probably the best endorsement for getting rid of the

ones on your BMW that I’ve ever come across.

I decide to drive the two-wheel drive B3 first and it

really is a fantastic car. Admittedly, Alpina has a good

starting point for the B3 with the already superb 335i

but that it can make a car that is so much better is

incredible. From the outside it looks great – black

robs the bodywork of its details but it can’t stop the

Alpina additions from doing their thing and adding

just the right amount of visual clout. The front and

rear spoilers are just about perfect and both wheel

designs look great though the Classics just swing it for

me. The interiors on both these cars are black as a

coal pit but the Alpina details do just enough to lift

them – the trademark blue dials with their red

needles are as fantastic as ever while the Alpina

steering wheel, finished in impossibly soft and

luxurious Lavalina leather, is so nice to hold on to that

you never want to let go which, thanks to the Switch-

Tronic transmission, you don’t have to. My only

criticism would be that the shift buttons on the back

of the steering wheel are a little bit too far away to be

reached comfortably with your index fingers so you

have to use your middle fingers, but at the quarter to

three driving position they are a bit too low. To be

honest, that’s such a minor point that I’m ashamed to

have even brought that up, but it’s all I’ve got…

Alpina quotes a 0-62 time of 4.8 seconds for the

B3 Bi-Turbo and the first time you experience what

the car is capable of flat-out you have no reason to

doubt that. It is seriously fast, the massive torque

making it effortless to drive and at full throttle its

ballistic and it feels exciting, not in the same sort of

eye-widening way as an M3 but then it is a very

different car, albeit every bit as quick. It sounds good

too, a beautiful straight-six howl emanating from

those quad pipes but it never becomes intrusive and

on a cruise it all but disappears. It’s great fun shuffling

up and down the gearbox with the steering wheel

buttons but when you can’t be bothered simply knock

the lever back across to ‘D’ and leave the Switch-

Tronic box to its own devices. It’s more than happy to

take matters into its own gears and while it does like

to get into a high gear early on the B3’s ample torque

reserves mean that it’ll pull whatever gear is chosen.

If the performance is impressive, the chassis is

exceptional – Alpina does a lot more work to the

36 BMW car

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: