Alpina CEO has confirmed that the company does not intend to produce custom versions of compact and subcompact BMW cars.
According to him, all cars based on the front-wheel-drive platform known as the UKL (1 Series, 2 Series Active Tourer / Gran Tourer, and X1 / X2) just lack the potential needed for full-scale tuning. Designing high-performance versions of these cars would just not be economically viable, given their original ‘affordable’ status.
There are technical reasons, too. All UKL-based BMW vehicles use Japan-made Aisin automatic transmissions, whereas the rest of the range uses the old-and-proven ZF transmission design. Alpina admits that, while it is closely familiar with the way the ZF works, it will have to learn much about the Aisin transmission design prior to working with it.
Finally, the tuner says it has mainly focused on powerful six- and eight-cylinder engines in the past several years, and just doesn’t have enough interest to mess around with weaker four-cylinder ones.
BMW will be unveiling its next UKL vehicle – the 2 Series Gran Coupe – at the Los-Angeles International Auto Show in November 2019. See the video and the gallery for details.