Continent-crushing Alpina D5 S for sale

Alpina as we knew it is long gone. The oil-burning D5 S is a fabulous reminder of what made it great

By PH Staff / Thursday, 16 October 2025 / Loading comments

When we talk about last-of-the-line cars to buy and wrap in cotton wool, it’s typically something low in weight and high in fuel consumption, powered by the kind of atmospheric petrol engine soon to be strangled into extinction by whatever the next round of emission legislation looks like. In other words, they don’t look like a mid-sized saloon car with a 3.0-litre diesel engine. These, after all, are not currently in short supply.

Unless they were made by Alpina, of course. Buchloe’s production numbers tend to make special edition Ferraris look mass-produced at the best of times, but this particular D5 S is an LCI (Life Cycle Impulse, or 'facelift' to everyone else) model from 2023, meaning that when the vendor talks of ‘a few’ making it to the UK, it really can be taken at face value. We wouldn’t be surprised if Alpina’s oil-burning 5 Series is outnumbered by Faberge eggs in this country.

Such rarity does tend to naturally confer high prices, though even with relatively few miles accrued and its maker’s demise (or whatever term you’d like to apply to BMW’s now completed takeover) clearly the car is not accruing value: when it launched back in 2018, the G30-generation D5 was a £60k+ model - clearly this one, newer and with options, would have cost been significantly more than the £69,850 now being asked for it.

Nevertheless, its appeal is less about outstanding value (after all, you could have a V8-powered M550i of similar vintage for £25k less) than the sum of its parts. If there’s better looking G30 (the M5 CS excepted) than Alpina’s vision in Black Sapphire with 20-inch Classic alloys, then we’ve not seen it. Then there’s the inside, which not only adds Nappa leather and Alcantara exactly where you want it, but also retains arguably BMW’s best compromise of physical switchgear and digital razzmatazz.

Then there’s the really important stuff. Granted, UK versions of the D5 S did not get the tri-turbo version of the 3.0-litre unit sold on the continent - but with 326hp and 516lb ft of torque (not to mention xDrive-based traction) it is plenty quick enough, and ought to nudge 45mpg on a motorway - or better yet, the autobahn where the D5 S will also nudge 170mph, Alpina having removed the 5 Series’s limiter.

It will do this while offering the sort of superlative, free-flowing ride that the tuner is justly famous for. In other words, for the business of getting a very long way away from home, without a pressing need to stop - and, crucially, to tread the line between deeply refined comfort and effortless dynamic control, the D5 S might still be in an oil-burning class of one. And on the basis that Alpina (as we knew and loved it) isn’t around to replace it, we’re going to nominate it as the long-distance machine worthy of preservation on our Noah’s car ark.

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