BMW Alpina B5

Cars

Ferocity with Grace

Imagine the most graceful creature on earth. Watch it in your mind as it sways and dances through the summer’s sunshine and the winter’s rains. Every twist and turn is a piece of choreographed wonder. Every glimmer and sparkle is an effortless movement capturing your gaze.

Now imagine the most powerful creature on earth. It’s strength and brutal execution of speed inspires the stuff of nightmares, leaving everything in its wake as it chases down its prey with devastating precision and prowess.

Okay, so perhaps that is a little over the top as far as opening gambits go. After all we are talking about a car and not a lion, or an eagle, or a shark… the list goes on.

We are however talking about a very special car. A car where beautiful elegance meets savage power. The 2018 Alpina B5.

 

The B5’s technical specifications are by now well documented. Long before we took delivery of the Alpina for this film we knew it was a 600bhp monster capable of 205mph, we knew it pulled almost 600lbs of torque (which is roughly the same as a category 5 hurricane, we think) and we knew all about the intense work and development that went into its clever all-wheel drive and four-wheel steering systems. Despite the fact BMWs original versions of these were pretty superb to start with. But nothing had prepared us for just how effortlessly graceful this car, with all it raw power, would be.

 

The very start of this article was originally written as part of the voiceover to accompany our Alpina B5 video. But once we began sifting through the flooded footage from three utterly sodden and windswept days in the Lake District it became apparent there aren’t many words that can convey what the visuals alone can’t. 

The B5 carries with it the striking presence of its 5 series cousin, but other than that Alpina have stuck strictly to their roots with its modest styling. Much to our delight there are no flared grills, angry wheel arches or over exaggerated lumps and bumps to let you know what’s going on beneath the green and gold paintwork. And there’s another thing that surprised us about this M5 rivalling super saloon. The noise, or more aptly, the lack of. Of course there’s a 4.4 litre V8 twin turbo at work so there is some noise but Alpina’s car, in all its splendor, doesn’t scream, shout and roar at you at all. But then again that is the very essence of Alpina and this B5 is the pinnacle of that.

 

Refined luxury. Refined performance. Ferocity with grace.

Something that didn’t surprise us as we wound around the empty roads, blustery (gale force) hills and deep grey (torrential) lakes was the sheer speed and power of this car. In a single heartbeat everything that makes the B5 so refined and chilled is torn up and blown out of the exhausts with a brutality rivalled by few things out there in its class.

Motor vehicles have the power to impact people and culture, they inspire emotion and passion. Which is exactly why we love working with Influx Magazine and is exactly why we wanted to make a film on the Alpina B5 that reflected its beauty and elegance. In one of the UK’s most magnificent but unforgiving environments.

The very image of the wonderfully wicked Alpina B5.

 

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