Alpina CEO Andreas
Bovensiepen shared his vision of a custom crossover SUV built with the BMW X7
as a starting point. The company plans to begin working on the new vehicle closer
to the next year, when the market demand for the original X7 settles a bit.
Launching the
production right now is impossible because of two reasons. First, the X7 has been
on a backorder for a while; second, BMW and Alpina make use of the same
production lines. In view of this, the tuner will close the pre-orders and attempt
to deliver the cars to those who have already paid for them instead.
Andreas
Bovensiepen said nothing about the technical specs of the upcoming SUV. That
said, there is little doubt that its performance will be superior to that of
the unmodded X7.
A few days ago,
the car media were abuzz about one of Alpina’s most interesting projects that
had to do with the hybrid-powered BMW i8. As it turned out, the tuner had built
and tested an Alpina i8, only to have its ambitions nipped in the bud by BMW. Apparently,
the Bavarian car manufacturer saw issue with the model straying too far from
the marque’s ‘environment-friendly’ philosophy. Among other things, Alpina threw
out the stock three-cylinder mill of the i8 and replaced it with a larger
four-cylinder engine. The swap resulted in a 100-hp (75-kW) performance
increase to the total of 460 hp (338 kW) – but BMW had to ban the project,
unfortunately.