My wholesome and fulfilling relationship with Alpina came to a shuddering end one day on a Welsh hillside in 2005. Up until that point it had been fine wines and small talk with Herr Bovensiepen and a celebration of a company which understood what actually made a decent road car.
Then came the E60 B5 saloon, and an Autocar group test with an M5 of the same vintage, and a 535d. I just didn't understand what had happened. That lovely balance of speed and comfort had been skewed by vast torque and the subsequent velocity exposed the chassis. Comfort had mutated into sloth. It felt flabby and under damped.
The thinking man's M3 and available now!
Alpina didn't much like the story, and I didn't hear from them for a long, long time.
During that time Alpina became slightly swamped by the rapid rise of Audi RS, AMG and BMW's own M models. They couldn't trade on outright power and pushing a 'comfort' message didn't really work either. Punters seem to want firepower and not much besides. Equally, cars like the M5 now have such a broad set of skills that it must make life very difficult to define an Alpina model with a different personality using such similar hardware.
The new B3 is the case in point, but I think it marks a return to what Alpina should be all about: a sub-M car that combines interesting components to create an even more interesting whole. This is a car which will hit 190mph, but can be specified to look little different to a 320d. It can be ordered with an optional LSD, one developed especially for this car, and that really is important when you have so much torque. And you all know how much I like the ZF eight-speed auto.
This car reawakened my love for Alpina. I've owned them in the past. For a while I couldn't really see myself driving any other fast saloon or estate car. But that lay period saw my attentions diverted. This B3 changes that. It feels old-school Alpina cool - a car with an identity quite unlike anything currently made by BMW.