That Right There is the BMW Alpina B7
What Is Alpina it's a Great question
They're not really an in-House tuning Company But They're not an outhouse
Tuning Company Either That Sounds like an Entirely different form of Business Altogether
Alpina Exists as technically a Separate Company in Germany That happens to build Cars Based on
Bmws Now BMW north America has Imported a Very Few Amount of These vehicles and is selling them at Dealerships and That Should Be Exciting
for Reasons That we'll get into as We Talk about This car
Alpina's are not Sports Cars They're less focus on performance like The bMw M division Cars are They're all about
Refinement and Luxury Like This B7 the Changes to the B7 Which is based on the bMw 7-Series
Look From the outside the Pretty Minimal But They create a Pretty striking Change When taken As a Whole
for Starters Under the Hood Is a 4.4 liter Twin-Turbo V8 that Makes
600 Horsepower and That's a Good start But the Majority of the Changes to the front end are
Plainly Obvious The Big change Up here is the fascia the lower fascia is
Quite different with The Alpina script Pretty Proudly right There at the bottom one interesting Thing
Beneath This you notice That Right Here
Both parts of The Elements of The Fascia sort of go
Downward as They go away it's something I'm not sure if i quite like once i notice it cuz now i can't
unsee it but It does you Know sort of back Up these Horizontal
Slats That They have to contrast against These vertical Slats and the Kidney Grilles oh no they don't look like
Kidneys anymore do They as We Get to the profile let's come and take a look at these Wheels all Alpina's have?
20 spoke Wheels in this case They Happen to be 20 inch Wheels front and rear it's a Really Nice look that Matches the
Overall
Profile The vehicle and in fact i would Kind of like to see more 7 series With a Wheel design like This and you also
Get As a Nice detail The Alpina badge right There Which is a Pretty cool crest with car parts Inside of it That
Crankshaft on the right and then the blue brake Callipers front and rear it'S a Nice Little Thing to reinforce like the
LPm Branding details are Pretty Few in Terms of Numbers on this bMw 7-Series and That's Nice Because
The Less complex a Design is if you can Make Really Simple Things Work the overall package Looks a Bit more Elegant and It Should
Age a lot Better
Too and if You notice Here how big this rear Door is this is not an
especially Long Wheelbase Variant of The car it's the standard wheelbase It Says The same as normal 7 Series but you really appreciate how much
Width you have in the store and how much Glass and that Speaks Volumes about how much rear Passenger Space you get as well
Now coming back Around to the Rear Again There's Not much the design is
Really Really Simple but i think that Helps It Because They've made this design Work
Well You have the Alpina and the B7 logos on the back of Course the quad Exhaust?
Finishers They're Not Really Exhaust tips The tips are further up it in there but the overall profile is something That
Will Look different to people who know What They're looking for but not Necessarily stand out
Too Much and That's an important Thing for a Luxury car this caliber you may want to something you can Enjoy something That's Slightly different
But Doesn't stand Out. Too much in the crowd and they've accomplished that with this B7
As Much As We Love to drive Cars Like This on
Empty Roads Glorious Scenery Behind us the truth is this is how we drive Cars on
Busy streets With Lots of traffic so what Better Way to explore some of What the B7 alpina can do then By Doing Just That
Cruising Up and down the venice Boulevard
It's here though on this Rough surface with all These Cars Around us that The B7 strengths Really Shine
You notice as we're cruising Along on This Really Bumpy you know not so well maintained Road
It's quiet in Here you get a Little Bit of tire noise from These Massive Wheels and tires but the Whole
Cabin The Experience of driving and This Is so isolated from the
Unpleasantries of Everything Outside The car you can Almost ignore it i'm
Cruising with The seat Ventilator on i have the seat Massage Function set to the
Whole body Activation yes That's a Real setting i've Got The
Cologne System on the lowest setting so i can get a Faint Whiff of
Whatever scent that They've Plugged into this you can choose your own though and as i Just sort of Lightly
Cruise down this street i don't really have to do much in fact i could Turn on the adaptive
Cruise control and The Lane Keep assist and Just Gently
Guide the car with My fingers While It steers itself and
Manages The Throttle and brake all By Itself i've done that on the freeway a Few times and in
Rush-Hour traffic it's Really Really Nice to not have to focus on
What you have to do with the gas and brake Just sort of Read the traffic and drive accordingly
There's 600 Horsepower
Powering This car
But You don't get It from the engine the engines quiet
Until You ramp It Up the sport mode then at That point It Becomes Very vocal and Just
Thrusts You Will long At a pace That Doesn't seem Believable
At a Red light This Is a Perfect opportunity to get to the legal speed limit Very quickly
Put The Shifter in the sports setting The Exhaust is burbling a Little Bit more Loudly and Let's Just Use it
We Get to we get to the speed limit Very Very Very quickly that felt Good
We Still also Talk about The ride quality
It's quiet it'S smooth But even on these super Bumpy Surfaces
you Have a Softness and a compliance You don't register
Many of The Bumps on the Road Unless They're the Kind of Bumps that Need registering i have a Very?
Commanding view of The Road Around me the seat Adjustability is
Fantastic i can Put Myself in a Position where all the controls are Neatly Laid out view
Clear View of The speedometer the tach all irrelevant information there we also Have a Head-up display That You can disable if You want you?
Can Control Which Information Appears There and It's a Really Nice suite of Features that Keep you in tune with Whatever the car is doing
so this Just from the
perspective of
How it looks Going down the Road its presence on the Road
It Services a Really important Thing and Just Making You Feel Good and
being a Cool-Looking Car that also happens to be
Really Stick It fast and super quiet and comfortable
This Is a Really Nice Blend of a Lot of the qualities that you would want When you're looking for a
Full-size Luxury Sedan That can do a High 11 second quarter-mile it's a Really Nice mix of a Lot of Those Features
The interior of This Alpina B7 Is
bizarre to put It Mildly
The Absurdly
Bright
Brown and the Bright Wood trim is a Shock to everybody hops in it's not Just the big brown
Detailing in Wood trim it's the contrast stitching it's the white stitching It Looks like a rope it's the badge
Right Here it's an interior that Makes an Impression
Immediately When you get in the car It might not be up to my tastes but
Fortunately You can Get a different Type of Wood Here i'm pretty sure you can Get This in an aluminum look you can Get a
different color Interior
Everybody Who's hop in this car as i've Been driving it has Been like Whoa
At the interior and i think It Does It on purpose it's Kind of Leaning into the
Same more German The styling cues that you might hope an Alpina would deliver
There's a lot to talk about When it comes to technology it's
Run Rampant in Ways That are Really Good in ways that are
Maybe a Little
Questionable You operate the
Entertainment control Through You have a volume Dial Here you have steering Wheel controls you have a Dial Down Here that Adjust Things?
But You can also Adjust Them Through Gestures if i raise my finger Like This and Make This gesture
The volume turns Up if i do It the other Way the volume Goes down if i make a gesture like This it has an
Effect You Just Heard It Beep
It's a neat Thing to show off but in practice when you do It you realize it's way more
Time-Consuming to try to do this to turn the volume up Instead of Just Doing it on the steering Wheel or reaching This knob?
Also As i've Been Driving It you know if i have a coffee Here i drink my coffee i put my coffee down?
somewhere in that process That Triggers a gesture That Misfires and
Goes Forward in the song i'm listening to Thirty Seconds It Ends Up being more frustrating Than Not
Similarly a Lot of The capacitive controls the
Air Conditioning System it'S all controlled Through This touchscreen Right Here that It Works Nicely
But You have to look at it in order to understand What you're activating you can't do it by Feel the
Idrive controller This surface Here is touch sensitive as well and you
Control It By resting Your fingers on it so often you find that When you're trying to do something
end Up accidentally hitting This
Triggering The Screen to train Now those are some Really Minor complaints They seem Pretty small and Inconsequential
But They Kind of Annoyed the driving experience and those Annoyances stack Up and they become something That
Detraction Overall Experience The Upside is the
Foundation of Tech Underneath This car Works Really Well This entertainment System is fast It switches from screens Really
Quickly It Supports Apple Carplay If you Spend $300 on the option It Doesn't Support Android auto at All but there's enough Functionality
To approximate the experience that you get on a smartphone now
Looking Forward We Have What Looks like a Fairly traditional Gauge Cluster Big speedo on the left big tachometer on the right
It's a
Actually a Digital Display Though The Rim of The speedo is a Lot
Outlined But As he Changed driving Modes You realize The Whole Screen is capable of Changing and Doing some neat Things
What really comes down to though is this is a Luxury car What's the interior of This Luxury car What'S that Experience like well
we have
Massaging We Have Heated Seat Heated Armrests we Have Ventilated Seats I almost Forgot to talk about the types of cologne You could
Spray Through The cab and via The controller Here
Like The S-class Mercedes
In the glove box or these Little Pods With Little Aromas you can Put into the car and if you activated Here it'll spritz them
Through The Cabin This is a Very Expensive Luxury car so let's talk a Little Bit about build quality
Overall Things Look Very Very Very Nice with the right Level of fit and
The materials Seem Excellent We Have to talk about the camera system that can Help You Park with this vehicle
When we Pull it up on the screen you see we have a Top-down view we have the backup lines?
That's Really Nice But we can Also Select This angle as well you get a look at the vehicle
Its relationship to the all The stuff outside of It in a Unique angle
That Could Help You Park We also have to hop in the backseat because there's Plenty to talk about back there
Life's Pretty Good in the back of the alpina B7 we took my Vanity Mirror of Which rear
Passengers Get to one each Looking alright Because i leaned back into my seat Let me Turn on My
Massage Function back Here i also have Dual zone climate control back Here as well as heated and Ventilated Seats The Headrest is?
more Of a pillow and The legroom here means i can
Cross My Leg it's Very Very Nice There's so much space back here and that massage Feels Good
It's almost Like sitting in a Lounge
Rather Than a back seat This armrest is massive you can Technically Sit an Additional person Here but
you Wouldn't want to that Center There is Pretty firm and so is this backrest They also be sitting Elevated This seat Is a
Short and Narrowly comfortable storage Areas are ok you even have a little Fold-Out Ashtrays on
Each of The doors
Does It Get Better
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