The 2011 BMW Alpina B7 Sedan

What? Alpina still exists? Well that's good news. I used to see the occasional 3 series Alpina now and again, and people always spoke highly of them. I thought that they had gone away, and that BMW was only putting out the M series stuff, but it looks like the well-established tuning house is still about, and they've cranked out a monster of a car with their 2011 BMW Alpina B7 Sedan.

Let's face it, the BMW 7 series is a real boat. A led sled if ever there was one, so motivating is going to take lots of power. Luckily, the boys from Alpina (are there any girls there? If so, email me.) are not shy about making engines that put out lots and lots and lots of power. To wit: A twin-turbocharged 4.4 liter V8 producing 500 (373kW) horsepower and 516 lb-ft (700Nm) of torque.

That gives you figures like 0-60 mph in 4.5 sec. The turbos are in a parallel set up and there are three intercoolers. The compression is at a fairly high 9.2:1 and a maximum turbo boost of 1.0 bar, so I guess Alpina has the engine mapping all worked out. All that power gets to the tarmac via a six-speed sport automatic transmission with an ALPINA SWITCH-TRONIC transmission control that offers tailored shift characteristics for every driver and situation thanks to its Sport and Manual modes.

Suspension-wise the B7 features goodies like tuned Dynamic Damping Control and Active Roll Stabilization. Front and rear ride height is reduced by 15mm and 10mm via new springs. There's something called Dynamic Damping Control and Active Roll Stabilization that makes this whale handle better (I hope) and another deals called Active Roll Stabilization, Dynamic Stability Control system into Dynamic Traction Control (DTC).

Oh, and the wheels, their really pretty 21 inchers wrapped in specially selected staggered MICHELIN PS2 tire set-up: 245/35 R21 front and 285/30 R21 rear.

Nice.

Source: BMW