00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 An interesting thing happened when this BMW 750i came down
00:16 the assembly line.
00:17 It wasn't quite finished.
00:19 BMW instead sent it to a company called Alpina,
00:22 which is also based in Germany, for a finishing touch.
00:25 The touch is rather substantial, actually transforming
00:27 the car into the B7.
00:30 They've upgraded the engine.
00:31 They've tweaked the suspension and given it a different look.
00:34 The finished product makes 540 horsepower,
00:37 but it's not intended to be a hot rod.
00:40 Rather, Alpina hopes it's a subtly more aggressive version
00:43 of the standard car, one that's just as nice to drive.
00:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:50 [ENGINE REVVING]
00:53 What does all that newfound power mean at the test track?
01:11 Well, it's interesting.
01:12 You put everything in sport mode.
01:13 You turn stability control off.
01:15 And like we normally do, we mash the brake,
01:16 get on the throttle, and get off the brake.
01:18 But there's a delay on initial acceleration.
01:20 Watch this.
01:22 Full throttle, and there's a pause.
01:24 Then all the boost comes in.
01:25 Then we have good acceleration.
01:27 0 to 60, 4.3 seconds.
01:31 And the quarter mile, 12.4 seconds at 113.6 miles an hour.
01:37 That initial pause off the line really hurts those numbers.
01:40 [TIRES SCREECHING]
01:46 And for our 60 to 0 braking test,
01:52 takes the B7 just 104 feet to stop from 60.
01:55 [TIRES SCREECHING]
01:58 And now the figure eight test in the B7 Alpina.
02:04 Tremendous acceleration out of a corner,
02:07 especially for a car this heavy.
02:09 And this is a very heavy car.
02:11 Doesn't need much steer that much.
02:13 It's kind of a gentle push mid-corner.
02:16 It's fabulous traction on corner exit.
02:19 Entry is rather good.
02:20 You just get the slightest sense of how heavy it is.
02:23 And it's pretty heavy.
02:26 Throttle control is not bad.
02:27 You have to be very mindful, though, because this thing will
02:30 get very sideways very quickly.
02:33 And that's fun, especially with a car this big and this heavy.
02:37 But it's not the fastest way around a corner.
02:39 [LAUGHS]
02:44 The transmission works pretty well.
02:46 I'm using the buttons behind the steering wheel
02:48 to grab up shifts and down shifts.
02:51 The problem is they aren't paddles.
02:52 They're buttons.
02:53 So they can be easy to miss if you're used to using paddles.
02:57 Braking power is very good.
02:59 It hauls this car to a stop very easily.
03:01 And now we're power sliding.
03:05 What I don't like is that the seat belt grabs you
03:08 when you get to a sideways situation,
03:11 because that kind of adds some worry to your brain.
03:13 [LAUGHS]
03:19 That shouldn't be as fun as it is.
03:20 [LAUGHS]
03:25 So in total, what do we have?
03:26 Well, we have a surprisingly decent handling car,
03:30 especially considering it's where it comes from.
03:33 The 7 Series isn't known for being a very fun or light car.
03:38 This isn't light either, but it certainly has fun down.
03:43 I'm decently surprised with how this thing handles.
03:45 [ENGINE REVVING]
03:47 [TIRES SQUEALING]
03:49 [ENGINE REVVING]
03:53 [TIRES SQUEALING]
03:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:10 So I'm very impressed by how the B7 handles a mountain road.
04:13 Right now, we have the car in its sport setting.
04:15 It's one of like five or so settings
04:18 you can put in this car.
04:20 There's Eco Pro, which helps with fuel economy.
04:21 There's Comfort.
04:22 There's Sport.
04:23 There's Sport Plus.
04:24 There might be another one.
04:25 I'm actually not sure.
04:26 You can customize Sport, though.
04:27 You can put Chassis and Sport or Comfort,
04:30 and the same with Drive Train.
04:31 Right now, I have the Chassis and Sport,
04:33 and the Drive Train and Comfort, because sometimes the Drive
04:36 Train can shift when you have it in automatic mode a little bit
04:40 too aggressively.
04:41 It won't go into top gear.
04:42 And sometimes the throttle can be a little too sharp.
04:45 Leave it all in the standard Comfort mode,
04:47 and it works a little bit more agreeably.
04:49 When you put the Chassis in Sport mode,
04:51 though, the steering tightens up.
04:53 It gives you a little bit more control.
04:55 It takes a little bit of slack out of the system,
04:57 and it makes the car a very nice thing to drive.
05:01 Now, that kind of control is important
05:03 because this is a very, very heavy car.
05:06 I don't know how you can make a rear-wheel drive
05:08 car, just a rear-wheel drive car, weigh over 4,700 pounds,
05:12 but here we are.
05:14 And the crazy thing is, this is the smallest V7.
05:16 You can get this with all-wheel drive.
05:18 You can get this long wheelbase and with all-wheel drive.
05:21 So this is actually probably the lightest V7 you can get.
05:24 How they managed to make it weigh so much beyond my grasp.
05:28 I have to commend them, though, because this thing
05:31 handles its weight very well.
05:33 The standard 7 Series or the 750i,
05:36 I was not so enamored with.
05:38 It felt heavy, didn't ride so well.
05:40 The engine felt kind of weak.
05:42 This seems to have fixed a lot of those issues
05:44 that I took with that car.
05:46 This is quite an enjoyable car.
05:48 Pushing this car, you don't need to push it to enjoy it,
06:00 which is nice, but you can.
06:01 And when you do it, it responds with this gentlest, gentlest,
06:05 gentlest of understeer.
06:06 It's actually pretty nice because it
06:08 tells you right when you're pushing the limit,
06:10 and you can keep on it relatively easy.
06:12 And when you power out of a corner,
06:14 you just have this very beautiful torque delivery.
06:18 It's smooth.
06:19 It's powerful.
06:21 It's very nice powering out of a corner.
06:23 I think my real enjoyment from this car
06:25 stems from my dislike of the 7 Series
06:29 I drove when it first came out in this current generation.
06:32 This is a much better, improved car, I think.
06:36 And in every regard, it's nice driving, smooth, powerful,
06:41 luxurious, comfortable.
06:43 I think it fits Alpina's mission statement of not building
06:46 some hot rod monster, but rather building
06:49 a serviceable daily driver that has
06:51 this subtle push of performance.
06:54 This car certainly has that.
06:57 We do have a monster of a V8 with twin turbos on it,
07:01 but it sounds kind of muted.
07:03 And I'm kind of in two positions about that.
07:06 One, I like the sound of V8s.
07:07 Two, this is $150,000 luxury car,
07:10 so maybe it should be expected that the engine's
07:12 kind of quiet.
07:13 Now, I do enjoy driving this car a lot.
07:18 It feels like a properly set up, big, rear wheel drive car.
07:21 And let's talk for a second about that.
07:23 This is a big car.
07:25 It's a massive car.
07:26 It's a heavy car, as we've already established.
07:29 And it feels it.
07:30 There's heft to everything that you do.
07:32 There's so much car around you, and you
07:35 can't shake the sense that you're driving something
07:38 that's absolutely massive.
07:40 Maybe that's a good thing, because this car isn't lying
07:43 to you about what it is.
07:44 It's not difficult to place in its lane, either.
07:46 You just know it's big.
07:49 Overall, I like the B7 quite a bit.
07:52 It handles the way I want it to.
07:54 It has the power that I want.
07:55 It also has the refinement and luxury that I want.
07:58 It just is a bit too heavy.
08:01 This, perhaps, is what the 750i should be.
08:05 Leave it to an aftermarket company to do it right.
08:08 There are some styling fumbles, namely that bizarre flat purple
08:15 leisure suit.
08:17 But the B7 is, overall, a successful car.
08:21 It accomplishes what Alpina set out to do,
08:23 which is create a faster, stately, and fun
08:26 to drive large luxury sedan.
08:29 With the 7 Series, you can never make
08:31 the weight seem less noticeable or the amount
08:33 of car that surrounds you seem less imposing.
08:36 But that may be exactly the point.
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