BMW Alpina xd3 awd

BMW Alpina xd3 awd
BMW identification front and rear, and the whole thing roll on 22in wheels and ultra-low-profile tires.
Actually, the standard wheels are the 20s, but given that radical wheels and tires are very much an Alpina trademark, which buyers wouldn’t pay the extra £1820 and opt for the Alpina Classic 22s? Especially when they’re wearing special Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires, 255/35s in front and 295/30s at the rear.

Differently sized tires front to rear is another part of the Alpina culture:
they make great play of building cars that handle neutrally on the limit. 
In the leather-lined cabin, you’ll find Alpina-badged sports seats plus Alpina logos on the sill plates, fascia and steering wheel, and enough variation in trim colors and seat piping to convince you that you’re in something more bespoke than a mere well-equipped BMW. Alpina's brochure calls it “discreet hints to the XD3 Biturbo's provenance” – something akin to being discreetly hit over the head.

Still, it’s very comfortable, feels special and from the driver’s seat has a pleasant sense of roominess on the inside and reasonable compactness on the road. It also shares the standard X3’s advantage of having a particularly fine view over the bonnet, an interesting collection of planes and bumps that also helpfully define the extremities of the car in tight going.

Mechanically speaking, Alpina has done its usual, taking BMW’s 3.0-litre aluminum in-line twin-turbo six and ‘optimizing’ its induction system and cooling system, among other aspects, to conform to their time-honored recipe of providing an especially wide power spread. Maximum power of 32 8bhp is supported by 516lb ft, the latter delivered between 1750 and 2500rpm.

Put that lot through a ZF eight-speed automatic, support it with a Drive Performance Control that in its Sport setting electronically increases damper control and sharpens throttle response, bung it all through BMW’s intelligent all-wheel-drive system and you have a machine that can cope anywhere.
It all comes together on the road. Despite a slightly ponderous throttle at low speeds, the XD3 feels extremely quick when it gets going. Overtaking slower traffic is simple, and the car feels quite compact when you’re doing it, a virtue that works well with the good visibility. The just-sub-supercar poke is well supported by a stable chassis that keeps the Alpina well and truly planted over typically lumpy British road surfaces and controls roll in corners taken hard.

There’s some trade-off in comfort over ripples and ruts, but not much.
This is one of those cars that feels more natural and composed when driven in Sport mode all the time. With this much high-quality rubber on the road, and thus grip, it’s difficult to get close to the limit away from the track, but for road use, the Alpina engineers’ promise of neutral cornering seems to be well and truly delivered. The steering feels perfectly weighted – not too light – and has enough accuracy for the car to be placed easily in tight going.
In all, Alpina’s XD3 feels sufficiently unique to claim the separate place in the car market claimed for it by its creators.

It is very obviously an enhanced BMW, but the special focus is there from the first mile. Those who must have an SUV for family or load reasons will find they need give away little in road ability to the best sports saloons. Which is Alpina’s whole point The XD3 isn’t the only SUV Alpina now offers, and nor is the effortless twin-turbo diesel tested adjacent the only engine fitted to that car. In certain markets, Germany included, the XD3 and a new take on the slope-roofed XD4 come with a special quad-turbo straight-six diesel, and though neither this engine nor the XD4 will be offered in the UK, we tried the combination on the country roads around Salzburg.

With 568lb ft served up well below 2000 rpm, this is an engine that rightly steals the headlines,
and it moves the XD4’s two-tonne bulk down the road like a leaf in the wind, ultimately powering the car to a top speed just shy of 170mph. The combination of large, low-pressure turbos with another pair of smaller, high-pressure, variable-geometry turbos for the upper half of the rev-range results in easily accessible performance at any moment.

However, the real star quality is still to be found in body control and steering. Our brief drive was useful only for fleeting impressions, but Alpina’s reworking of the steering – now quicker off-center but also more natural and resolute in its action – and suspension geometry gives the driver confidence not only rare among SUVs but also equal to the car’s huge grip levels. I’m not sure any comparable car is easier to place. Thicker anti-roll bars and a 15mm drop in ride height give the XD4 body control on a par with Porsche’s Macan, and yet even on a set of 20in multi-spoke alloys, the ride quality lives up the luxury brief. A range of around 500 miles doesn’t hurt, either.
The xDrive driveline also deserves mention. The torque split feels more rear-biased than that of the standard X4 and uses an electronic locking differential at the back, so the XD4 will power-oversteer quite happily but otherwise corners neutrally. Ultimately, of course, Alpina’s talents remain better deployed elsewhere in the range, and there won’t be many Autocar readers who wouldn’t rather own a B4 S Touring.
So far, though, the XD models have brought in a useful degree of new business, and that will help
bankroll the development of coupés and saloons.