First Drive: 2021 Alpina B3 Touring Review

For 55 years Alpina has been studiously examining the way that BMW goes about building its performance cars, and then delighting in taking the same basic raw material and running away with it in precisely the opposite direction. As a business case ‘we’re going to make BMW performance cars that are slower and less exciting than their own’ would take a lot of selling, but the Bovensiepen family that founded Alpina in 1965 would have paid little attention to that. They have always done things their own way.

Instead they have focussed on producing cars that deliver their performance in a rather different way, subtler yet often more satisfying than the BMW approach, preferring the long lasting inner smile to the short-lived belly laugh. Nor have they ever gone after volume sales, happy for production to hover around the 2,000 unit mark, which is one fifth of what Ferrari makes each year and one thousandth of what BMW knocks out. Alpinas are very rare and, almost without exception, very special.

And this new B3 is its latest and, in many ways, has the toughest job of all. Because so far as ultra-fast compact BMW estates go, Alpina has always had the turf to itself. But no longer. For the first time in the 34 years since the launch of the original M3, BMW is going to be making M3 Tourings. The B3 will also obviously be available in saloon form and the superb diesel-powered D3 S continues in production, at least for now.

There has always been something deliciously discreet about the way Alpina enhance BMW styling for its cars, and the B3 is no different. Of course you know it’s an Alpina from the moment your eyes fall on those trademark vaned wheels, but the other exterior modifications, including a deeper front spoiler, four chromed tail pipes are really very subtle and tasteful.

Inside you’ll find Alpina’s rather than BMW’s choice in upholstery (Alcantara a synthetic leather called Sensatec as standard) and of course many, many possibilities to tailor it to your own, exclusive requirements. This is not the kind of car that feels the need to scream its identity at you. It just quietly lets you know that what you’re driving is not just another fast BMW, but something distinctly different. And that is enough.

The B3 comes with a 3.0-litre straight six engine very similar but not identical to that BMW uses in the forthcoming M3. And anyone who knows Alpina’s preferred modus operandi will not be surprised to learn that while it has a little less power than the M3 – 462PS (340kW) versus 480PS (353kW) – that’s because they’ve gone chasing rather more useful torque instead. Here the difference between the two rivals is rather more marked, with the Alpina offering a giant 700Nm (516lb ft), the M3 a markedly more modest 600Nm (443lb ft). Running through an eight speed automatic ZF gearbox it directs its potential to all four wheels – the option on rear-wheel-drive only now having been removed.

It is a brutally fast machine, Alpina claiming a 3.8 second sprint from rest to 62mph that I don’t doubt. And yet when you’re on board it doesn’t feel that way. It could deliver the same power and torque but concentrate it into one big bang in the back and it would certainly feel quicker still, but Alpina likes torque curves to be elastic and draped across the entire rev range. So while it may never feel exactly deranged, the flip side is that there is always a solid wall of torque waiting for you in almost any gear at almost any speed. Nor do you have to pause to account for lag or downshifts: the engine is so responsive it almost always just throws you past whatever it is that’s been holding you up. And then there’s the noise, as cultured a howl as you could hope a modern straight six motor, let alone one with a couple of turbos strapped to its side.

The chassis follows the same philosophy. Sitting on its own springs and dampers with its own geometry, a widened track and a new map for the power steering, it has been tuned as much for ride quality as a lizard-like ability to change direction. These are cars aimed at the street rather than the race track, and given this is a five door estate we’re talking about, or even a four door saloon, that seem an eminently sensible approach.

The result is this wonderful suppleness to the way it makes it way down a decent road, showing a compatibility with our sadly rather rutted country lanes that you don’t usually find in sporting cars that have not been specifically developed in the UK. Yet at the same time it never feels less than properly poised.

If there is a criticism it is that something, almost certainly the now compulsory four-wheel-drive system, has robbed the car of some of its feel. There’s less feedback through the steering than you’d find in a previous generation rear-drive B3 and therefore, less of a sense of connection between man and machine. It’s not a serious gripe because this is not the kind of car likely to appeal to white knuckled, gimlet-eyed road warriors, but it is worth pointing out all the same.

It is very similar to that of the BMW M440i which is effectively the donor car for the B3, which means it’s very good but perhaps no better than you’d expect given the considerable sums involved. If you want it taken to the next level, Alpina will gladly make it so, but only after the price has risen considerably. You might, for instance, choose to have your paddle shifters made from CNC-milled aluminium, or any amount of your interior trimmed in Vernasca, Merino or exquisite (and hideously expensive) Lavalina leather, crafted from untreated full grain hides sourced exclusively in the south of Germany.

Its multimedia system is the same used by BMW which means a 12.3-inch instrument display (but now in green and blue colours) and a 10.3-inch central screen operated by the ubiquitous iDrive controller.

This is the first B3 with an engine based not on that from a standard 3 Series, but the M3 equivalent. Which means Alpina no longer have to completely re-engineer a single turbo engine for a twin turbo application. That said the new S58 engine is not simply cut and pasted into the B3 with a change of ECU. It uses the same external turbo housings as the M3, but inside it is all bespoke to Alpina using, smaller, low-inertia turbine wheels to provide that Alpina low down torque and response, and to hell with the few horsepower it might cost at the top end. It has its own intake system, engine management and tailor made exhaust to made sure that while the engine itself may be BMW’s, the way the fuel/air mixture is introduced to and evacuated from it is all Alpina.

On the suspension side, Alpina works with Pirelli to provide tyres with unusually compliant sidewalls so that even the optional 20-inch rims with their liquorice 30 per cent profiles retain that crucial Alpina ride quality. So important is this characteristic to the folk at the factory in Buchloe, that a unique ‘Comfort Plus’ setting is provided among the various drive functions from which you can choose. And you may choose to use it all the time…

This is another quick, confident, subtle yet ever so sophisticated Alpina, conceived, engineered and executed to the same battleplan to which it has subscribed for decades, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. If you know Alpina and love Alpina, you’re like to find the new B3 as compelling as ever. If you don’t and your BMW M3 configuration is about to wing itself to your nearest dealer, you might just want to pause for a moment and consider it, and not just because it will save you the M3’s highly, er, individualist front end treatment.

It’s not a perfect car – no car ever is – and we’re not the only ones who lament the absence of a rear-wheel-drive version: it is known to be missed by none other than Alpina top brass too, but there’s just not the demand to justify its development. You might also pause for a moment to consider a D3 S. Diesel is obviously increasingly persona non grata these days but as a fuel that promotes Alpina’s love of low down torque, transforms fuel consumption and therefore the range of a car with an inconveniently small 59-litre fuel tank, there is a very great deal still to be said for it.

But even as it stands, the B3 is another superb Alpina, and while it must face fresh competition in the form of the new M3 Touring, it is the BMW that now has it all to prove now. It will certainly be a little quicker than the Alpina, it may well be more exciting under very specific probably not very realistic circumstances, but to be a better compact high performance daily driver than this will take something very special indeed.