2011 BMW Alpina B7 xDrive Impressive For Its Size

BMW rolled out its Alpina B7 xDrive at this year's New York Auto Show. The car has been bouncing around on the nets for a while now, and although there's no getting around the fact that this is a huge car, there's also little way of ignoring that BMW and Alpina have overcome the enormousness of the car.

The 2011 BMW Alpina B7 xDrive is motivated by a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8. Yes, that is the same basic plant found in a surprisingly wide number of BMWs, but in the case of the Alpina B7 xDrive, the power output has been appreciably improved to 500 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque. That's an increase from the "normal" figures by 100 hp over stock in the pony department and up by 66 pound-feet in the grunt end of things.

All that muscle under the pool table sized hood is enough to get the Alpina B7 xDrive from a dead stop to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds. No doubt that is aided by not just the power, but also the fact that the Alpina B7 xDrive comes with an all wheel drive system (hence that x in there).

Other little niceties about on the 2011 BMW Alpina B7 xDrive. All four of the heavy-duty half shafts are sourced from the 7 Series High Security variant. The big Alpina can drop from 60 to 0 mph under hard braking in a distance that is identical to a Porsche Turbo. And Alpina has written their own software system for the AWD system for better performance.

So what we have here, courtesy of BMW and Alpina, is yet another sedan that thinks it's a sportscar. Under the best of circumstances, that's a tough nut to crack. But given the size and considerable weight that they started to work with here, Alpina has seemingly worked miracles.

Source: AutoBlog