Mar 27, 2023

Home » Technology » BMW M5 E39 and Alpina B10 V8 youngtimers test byarchywordys No Comments Today I have both next to me, a sleek luxury Alpina in blue metallic and a red challenging M5. Pinch me if I’m dreaming! Ever since I managed to get a relatively rare 1998 Alpina B10 V8 into my own garage in the fall, I knew I had to drive it side-by-side with the BMW M5, which had just started production that year. It was a few tens of horses more powerful, slightly more expensive, had a self-locking differential and stiffer suspension. At that time, the BMW M5 was a rocket on wheels that was not lost even on the racing circuit. Will the decent-looking Alpina be enough for her? Both cars are in authentic condition, only the headlight lamps have been slightly modified on both, on the M5 to the facelift model and on the Alpina from yellow to white indicators that were on the car since the 1999 model year. Beautiful roads and the first spring sunshine invite you to “tweak” the V8 engines I negotiated with the owner of the M5, Michal, for about a month. Either there was no time or the weather didn’t work out for us. Michal lives in Vysočina. Suddenly, a freer afternoon appeared, the weather outside was almost like a T-shirt and the remnants of salt and gravel were slowly washed away from the roads. In the distance, you can hear the frenetic screeching of sports bikes, in short, the motorcycling season is slowly starting. The road along the D1 to Humpolka went by like water. On the quiet deck of the Alpina, I just had time to enjoy one almost forgotten CD of the metal band Megadeth, and as soon as the album finished playing, the convention and the first district joys were approaching. I swapped out the popular “Symphony of Destruction” for the eight-cylinder thunder and moved the automatic selector to manual. Here I can select between individual speeds with the buttons behind the steering wheel, the so-called Alpina Switch-Tronic. It’s an old system for today, of course, but the ZF gearbox shifts quickly, everything works exactly as it did when the car was new. Both cars wear almost identical 18″ wheels, but their design is diametrically different. Instead of an electric guitar emanating from high-quality speakers, it was the turn of a triple, the eight-cylinder rumbled with its decent, but still distinct dense tone, and the revolutions exceeded the number four for the first time. The Alpina has an exemplary linear operation and, thanks to the sharper cams, the thrust will intensify somewhere just above the four five thousand. You can rev the engine up to six and a half, but around six you realistically shift higher. The thrust is strong, even and smooth, something you don’t normally experience when taking off a large airliner. In the vicinity of Humpolec and Pelhřimov, where we had a meeting with Michal and his BMW M5 in the color of Imola rot, there are really nice roads where there is no traffic and there are a lot of technically demanding turns, but also treacherous horizons. But we are no longer the teenage boys who drooled over these carts back then, so we can hopefully keep their horses firmly under the reins. However, the unforced but crushing acceleration of both naturally aspirated V8s is highly addictive. The Alpina uses the BMW M62 engine without Vanos variable valve timing as a basis, the heart of the M5 is the then new S62 engine, which not only has Vanos, but also an electronically controlled throttle with a switchable fuel map with the Sport button. The B10 and M5 are so similar, yet very different when driving The started BMW M5 is already slowly warming up and I am surprised by its very quiet idling. The Alpina is more bassy, ​​denser, the S62 engine in the M5 surprisingly purrs like a cat. I sit straight behind the wheel, Michal and his brother, on the other hand, are trying the Alpina, with which they have had no experience so far. They will go first, because I don’t know the local roads very well. I warm the BMW M5 up to the operating temperature of the oil by driving smoothly. Under the tachometer, the M5 does not have an economy meter like the Alpina or a regular BMW, but an oil thermometer. I am surprised that the fully electric emc seat cannot be adjusted a little lower, because it is simply impossible to find the ideal driving position as in Alpina. It sits a few inches higher here and it was quite a surprise. The length of the backrest is also longer for the anatomical Alpina sports seat, I simply cannot find the ideal position in the original two-tone saddles of the M5. There were many valuable extras in the particular BMW M5 that many cars did not have, most notably the leather-wrapped instrument panel. The right hand rested on the gear lever, the left foot on the clutch. You know what, we can argue and argue all we want, but there’s nothing better than controlling the gears yourself in a sports-tuned car. Working with the clutch, starting off, the shifting process, these are all joys that the Alpina simply cannot offer with the buttons on the steering wheel. Those are my first impressions. Suddenly I see that the oil is already at operating temperature and I can finally downshift to second gear and pull the devil’s tail, as they say. The engine in the M5 is completely different than in the Alpina. It also has a nice linear pull, but everything happens about a thousand revolutions higher. The engine will fly through the first three thousand that you don’t even know how it happened. But then the classic emk more cutting sports growl starts to sound, which intensifies above five thousand. The engine then flies like the wind at full throttle, and one would slowly forget that they have to shift into another gear soon, that the Emek eight-cylinder engine does not turn a crazy eight thousand like its smaller six-cylinder sister, the M3 (E46). The M5 has a volume of almost five liters and power in the entire range of revolutions. But the sound and the experience are different from Alpina. The Alpina engine is a bomber, the M5 is more like a heavier fighter, if I didn’t know the technical data, I would guess the Alpina engine to have a slightly larger volume of cylinders than the M5. But it’s exactly the opposite. Alpina sports seats only have manual control, but they sit lower to the floor and have a more comfortable back hold and overall body support. When a longer straight opens up, the men in front of me step on Alpina’s neck, and I have to do the dialed three at the M5 so that they don’t disappear behind the next horizon. I didn’t cruise the Alpina easily, I wasn’t much better at springy acceleration, if at all. The M5 is definitely faster in the end, but the difference is surprisingly very small. It is strange that the BMW M5 weighs almost one hundred and fifty kilograms more than the Alpina according to the technical data. I didn’t have that feeling while driving it. Namely, the BMW M5 has a steeper steering gear and a smaller steering wheel diameter. The Emko brakes are also more powerful, and the driver has the feeling that the car is masterfully disguising its weight. 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The BMW M5 has a self-locking differential at the rear, and it is very noticeable under the gas when exiting sharp turns. If you want to, you know you’ll tear your ass off with the gas. Or, at least, it is enough to drive to such a limit of grip, when you already feel how the M5 is guided nicely by the gas out of the corner. The Alpina plays on mechanical grip, and cornering is just as fast in it, it just requires an even smoother approach. It is not built for adolescent powerslides, in short, the self-locking system would be lacking in this respect. The steering feel is pleasant in both cars, perhaps I can read the road better through the Alpina’s larger steering wheel with a slightly slower steering gear. The dilemma of which one to choose is huge, neither one puts the other to shame When I get out of the M5, which will probably want to refuel again, I think about how to evaluate the whole nostalgic battle between two twenty-five-year-old gems of German technology. The BMW M5 has significantly harder suspension, but it is certainly never unpleasantly, indecently hard. This often happens with sports limousines of the present time, but back then a sports sedan had to be able to not only entertain behind the wheel, but also flow nonchalantly through the countryside. The Alpina does it far better than the BMW M5. And if I switch the selector to manual shifting in it, I can enjoy a sporty drive with it even in those rare moments when I come across an empty and winding county road. The BMW M5 is of course better for district sports driving. It has a manual gearbox, its engine wants to look at the maximum of 6600 rpm more often and the driver gets even more involved in the driving process. But then the highway comes, I turn on the high-quality audio, which in the Alpina has incomparably better acoustics than any BMW, and I feel like a king. Alpines are highly individual cars. They are for people who really only want the best, but at the same time they don’t need to compete with anyone or prove anything to anyone. Each car is a little different, but both are simply great. However, the BMW M5 will always be the predator in my eyes. It has a manual transmission and that really matters. It was my old dream, which I finally fulfilled years later in a different way – with a car from the workshops in Buchloe, from Alpina. When I was in my twenties, I wouldn’t have considered the Alpina brand at all. In the food chain, the EM badge always played a dominant role, in short, it was the “boss” among the Bavarians. I left our meeting place depleted of a lot of fuel in the tank, but enriched with a valuable experience. In Alpina, I started a quieter album by Sinéad O’Connor on my way back for a change, convincing myself in my mind that I don’t really need a masterpiece in the form of a BMW M5 (E39). However, if you dream of an M5 just like I did, don’t hesitate and buy it, don’t wait, because these cars are already very expensive today, but they also have a reason for that. And if you want an Alpina, it’s even more difficult because very few of them were made. In my opinion, you won’t lose money on any of them. BMW M5 (E39)