Cars.com's Kelsey Mays walks you through the 2007 BMW Alpina B7. It competes with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Audi A8.
Transcript
(upbeat beats) Hi, this is Kelsey Mays for Cars.com and we're here with the 2007 BMW Alpina B7. At German tuner Alpina has been working with BMW since the 1960s, but this is their second US bound car.
It's basically a version of the full-size 7 series and it goes toe-to-toe with cars like the Mercedes S63 AMG and Audi S8. The changes from the 7 series include a lower front bumper, a beefier suspension, and much larger wheels. These are 21 inches in diameter and the brakes themselves are almost 15 inches large. That's about the same neighborhood as the brakes on a Lamborghini Murcielago. Rather than use the 760's V12, Alpina went with BMWs valvetronic V8. In this case, the 4.4 liter engine from the original 745. The B7 adds a supercharger, which Germans called the compressor. And total output is 500 horsepower and 516 pounds feet of torque. That makes the V7 fast, which the Germans call Schnell. We're a little bit Schnell (shell) shocked ourselves because this thing hits 60 miles per hour in under five seconds according to BMW. Now we didn't get a chance to verify that claim because well, there's snow outside and we aren't idiots. How do you say that in German. Like other 7 series, the Alpina has an electronic transmission, which uses this little stock right here to shift. There's also shift buttons on the back of the steering wheel here. It's a little bit abrupt, especially in sport mode at lower speeds, but we've experienced much worse from other automatic transmission BMWs. Inside, You get a custom steering wheel and some Alpina badges along the headliner and the dashboard. Unfortunately, you still have to deal with some of the oddities of the 7 series such as I-drive, and probably some of the most complicated seat controls anywhere. Now Alpina will sell only about 750 of these cars to us consumers between 2007 and 2008. So it's going to be pretty exclusive this car stickers at about $115,000, which is just below the 760. It does have a lot more power than the 760 does. And so this might actually be the best 7 series. Your money can buy. For additional information on this car or any other go to cars.com and our blog kicking tires.
