Alpina

A mong the great names in the history of cars-Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bentley and so on-room should be made for Burkhard Bovensiepen. This man is the founder of one of the greatest automobile companies in all Europe.

Unlike AC Schnitzer, Hartge, Dinan, Hamann et al, Alpina isn't a BMW tuner. It's regarded as a manufacturer in its own right; on an owner's documentation there is no mention of BMW. Alpinas, unlike BMWs, are never thought of as vulgar. They're spoken of in reverential tones. Anyone who knows their German cars has nothing but respect for this mysterious brand. There's nothing quite like an Alpina.

Most aftermarket tuners are regarded with varying degrees of disdain by the manufacturers of the original products they mess about with. That they're changing intrinsic parts of a design that took many years and considerable sums to perfect. How could these upstarts possibly improve upon perfection? To a certain extent, they have a point. Liberating more power than the designers allowed for in the first place has resulted in tears, financial ruin and even death for some owners. Although there are one or two exceptions.

Take Mercedes. AMG was so respected by the manufacturer that it ended up buying the company. Brabus enjoys close ties too. In the UK, those cars are sold through official M-B dealerships. It's a similar story with Alpina's relationship with BMW. The two are incredibly close.

Hang around on any Sunday afternoon in Malibu and you'll stop bothering to count Lambos and Ferraris, but the chances of seeing an Alpina amid the throng of ultra-expensive metal are almost zero. Here are two of the best: a B10 Bi-Turbo and a B8 4.6. Under their relatively normal exteriors lies performance that should give supercar owners sleepless nights. This has been the appeal of Alpina. Warp speed in cars you can share with all the family; cars that won't attract unnecessary attention from the boys in blue; cars that don't cost a fortune to repair or service. Quite an easy sell, really. But for all their ample charms, they're still made in tiny numbers. That's the way they like it at the factory in Buchloe, Bavaria. They're rarer than most Italian exotica, and make Astons and Bentleys look positively common. The E36-derived B8 is even more relevant today than it was 13 years ago when it first saw light of day-it's a 3 Series with a V8, predating the new M3 by more than a decade.

With just 221 of these B8s built, they're special even by Alpina standards. This is number 0038. There were other E36 Alpinas, but the B8 is where it's at, delivering truly brilliant performance in an elegant car that makes the current 3 Series look bloated and awkward. The numbers are enough to make anyone salivate: eight cylinders, 4.6 liters, 333 horses and six gears powering just two wheels. At 1000 rpm, the B8 is developing the same amount of torque that an M3 Evo does at full pelt. It'll power on to a maximum speed said to be 175 mph. Those in the know, however, reckon this is typical Teutonic understatement. The V8 transplant was far from straightforward, but as Alpina has such a good relationship with the OEM, BMW was willing to make 42 significant modifications to the body design before delivering panels to Alpina. Most cars have their engines fitted from underneath, but the B8's had to be dropped in. The effort was well worth it.

It wasn't just the bodies that needed significant alteration. The engine was derived from the contemporary 540i, but as that unit has Alusil-coated bores, they couldn't simply overbore the block. New ones had to be cast. Again, something BMW was happy to help with. There were higher-compression Mahle pistons, a new management system and a redesigned exhaust to cope with the extra grunt. A six-speed Getrag 'box was the only available transmission. Externally, there weren't many clues to tell the uninitiated they were looking at a far-from-ordinary Bimmer: some subtle gold stripes, those always-beautiful Alpina spoked alloys and a couple of spoilers-that was about it.