The Alpina B8 is the Connosseur's Autobahn Burner - One Take

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In this episode, Matt heads over to Bavaria, land of BMW's, to test a true connosseur's Autobahn special, the Alpina B8. After visiting the factory where these cars are heavily modified, we find a quiet backroad to test the vehicles speed and handling, but not before hitting almost 190 mph (legally) on the highway. With over 600 horsepower, all-wheel-drive, and details stealth and up front, it's the gentleman's ride of choice in Bavaria.

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The Alpina B8 is the Connosseur's Autobahn Burner - One Take
#alpinab8
#bmwalpina

[LitleBear]

No one accidentally ends up in an Alpina, that's why they are cool.

[WillSatchwell]

Love Alpina. Their B5 Touring is possibly the most perfect car in existance today.

[tlrprice]

I love what Alpina stands for and how they make cars the B3 or D3 touring would probably be the best daily ever!

[rpitneyjr]

The unskippable ads are making YT very difficult to watch anymore.

[chadtulumalo]

Just got back from German/Austrian vacay with the wife and family. You have to get yourself in a car like this and drive these roads. It is life changing! Lol. Thanks for another great video!

[geemanbmw]

Matt you summed it up perfectly calling it stealth wealth and a fine tailored suite and you definitely have matured in your summary description. Well done video matt thank you!

[Phauglin]

As a European I am super glad you got to show your large audience how some of our B roads look like over here! I am glad you briefly talked about the cultural context of this car as well, helps you realize why it might be more useful on European highways as opposed to the ones in the US given the lack of speed enforcement here.

Hope you enjoyed your trip, I hope you get to film more videos around here in the future.

[spt]

What a beautiful machine. Love the slightly understated approach here. Great review!!

[kgh]

Alpina is still a brand, you fail to mention that. You did mention some of the extensive unique features Alpina changes to BMW stock cars.
If you buy an Alpina, the BMW chassis numbers are erased and replaced by Alpina's numbers, on your car registration it says Alpina.

That being said @Matt Farah, awesome review of what Alpine is about with all their models
Jeremy Clarkson (in the BBC Top Gear show) did a segment on a BMW M5 on the track, liked it there to play with,
still said he would not buy one because the most of your daily drive is on the open road,
at the end of that bit, he drove an Alpine B5 home from the track... what you want to drive every day

[dsher]

Beautiful scenery. As other people have said, I really wish that we could buy the wagons over here. Such all around amazing cars.

[RS]

I think a video on Matt's notebook would be interesting.

[timmietz]

I love my Alpina XB7 that I picked up last year. It is truly a very well-built vehicle. I believe that the extra money that they charge versus the regular BMWs is truly justified. Unfortunately, the custom interiors that Matt was referring to, I’m not available in the United States. I mean for the United States market. That would be the LAVALINA leather which is absolutely amazing and as about $20-$25, 000 extra in Europe, but probably worth every penny.

[torpedo]

Hauling ass early in the morning on German b roads, in the mountains, is truly a pleasure. The only place for me where getting to and fro from work was the highlight of the day.

[joetacchino]

I find it ironic that BMW's own M Division has turned into Alpina. Whereas M used to be high revving NA enignes and manual gearboxes, Alpina was always stout auto transmissions, forced induction and instant, relentless shove. Now M's are also forced induction and not even DCT's but straight torque converter autos. Except that instead of fully adopting the Alpina mantra, they go for the hardcore suspension settings. As Matt says "motorsports theater" but no real motorsports chops.

When the Z8 came out with the Alpina version, I couldn't figure out why someone in a 2 seat roadster would want to trade the E39 M5's lovely engine and manual gearbox for the normal 540's V8 and autobox. But now, i'd much rather have an Alpina B8 over an M8 Competition. Much more suited for the mission.

[steviedee]

I love how you explained this car simply brilliant 👏

[StephenCornelius]

Great video, lovely road. I know it wouldn't have been a one take but would have liked to see some of the autobahn drive you kept referencing in the video.

[GOINFINITI]

This is a spot-on article about Alpina - you nailed the explanation. Ever since I drove the Alpina 5 series I really loved it and came to respect the brand. It really is not just some tuner company, they really do transform the car from the ground up. If M cars today are trying to be the racers on the road - this is a true and much more usable sports car made for 95% of situations on the road. Sadly they sold the Alpina brand name to BMW, where I am afraid the BMW marketing department will whore-out the living shit out of the badge presumably making it also an equipment package - just like they did with their own M badge. M cars used to be something really exclusive, but these days when you see a NON-M with entry engine and with some optical "M package" and stupid fake badge - that is the reason real that also M cars lost their appeal to me. So my advice is - get yourself the real ALpina car while you can and just enjoy and take good care of it - it will be really valuable some day.

[Handcannon]

Seems like a fantastically engineered car with great attention to detail, and the uniqueness and prestige that comes with seeing a rare alpina is awesome(I have a neighbor with one of the 2020 alpina x7's blacked out with these neon yellow calipers and details and its beautiful, and rare to see). That being said, I certainly wouldnt be against owning one of their vehicles, but still if I had to choose between one of these b8's and the comparatively priced RS7, id pick the RS7 almost every time unless I was traveling long distances in the car regularly. The performance and agility of the RS7 is just incredible, albeit probably a bit less luxurious on the interior(more of a subtle, minimalist sense of luxury in the rs7), and the RS7's hatchback style makes it a more practical vehicle as well, either way both are incredible cars that are simply built for slightly different purposes.

[EMPcharged]

What a beautiful car, but an even more beautiful place. I love the forest to fields of the German landscape and the Alpina Green fits right in.

[pero]

The bigger rear disc is for the electronic LSD, witch is just the abs unit applying brake force to the slipping wheel in the back.
I have the same thing on my f31 3 series with the M-performance brakes; the rear disks are bigger.