Alpina’s B5 GT flagship makes 634 hp, hits 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds

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In a rush for your next Very Important business meeting? Are peasants unexpectedly holding a sit-in at your downtown office? Are there only two seats left at the offshore taxation seminar? Then the new 2023 BMW Alpina B5 GT could be the car to help whisk you away, as quickly as possible, to these universally understood priorities.

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BMW Alpina’s B5 GT makes 634 hp, hits 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds Back to video

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In case you need a refresher, Alpina has always been a kinda-sorta tuning house for BMW, an entity which was brought wholly in-house about one year ago. Now officially part of the company, the small-series manufacturer from Buchloe, just outside Munich, and Bimmer itself are joint partners like never before.

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It’d seem the firm is off to a good start. Shown here is the brand’s new flagship, called the B5 GT and propelled by the most powerful engine in Alpina’s history. The twin-turbo 4.4L V8 delivers 634 horsepower and roughly a like amount of torque, all fed to the pavement through a ZF-sourced eight-speed automatic transmission. These numbers knock off the former king of the Alpina hill — the B8 Grand Coupé and XB7 SUV are only good for a piddling 630 horsepower.

Hey, four more ponies are four more ponies.

Those are 20-inch forged wheels, paint which looks a mile deep, and Brembo-branded brakes with 395-mm platters up front and 398s in the rear. That’s Ferrari territory. Other improvements over last year’s car, whose owners are surely busy running them through an industrial shredder, include better seats with more lateral support and Alcantara centre swaths.

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Alpina says the executive express can run to 100 km/h from rest in less than 3.4 seconds, or 3.6 ticks for the wagon Touring. A trick exhaust system is said to be fitted with a rejigged middle silencer for a throatier V8 sound, one amplified by quad exhaust tips coated with a titanium nitride black finish. Think exotic Euro eight-cylinders, not an American burble.

Which, of course, is exactly what this thing is. Order books are open across the pond right now, with the wealthy one-per-cent surely snapping up the available 250 units as this is being written. No word on how many will find their way to North America.