Is this Alpina-tuned diesel version of a BMW 4 Series Gran Coupé the best executive express yet? On sale Now Price from £67,000
Neil Winn neil.winn@haymarket.com
LAND ROVER AND Barbour. BMW and Kith. Porsche and Daniel Arsham. Tie-ups between car makers and fashion brands are all the rage right now, which got us thinking: if BMW tuner Alpina launched a fashion campaign, who would it team up with?
Well, we think outerwear specialist Moncler is a good fit, because like Alpina, it aims to offer luxury items you can use every day. Take this D4 S Gran Coupé, for example. The tuning firm says it’s ideal for high-mileage drivers who value low fuel consumption but don’t want to compromise on performance and dynamics.
To make sure it delivers on that lofty claim, the D4 S uses the same twin-turbo 3.0-litre six-cylinder diesel as the superb BMW M440d Gran Coupé. While BMW no longer offers that engine with the 4 Series in the UK, Alpina has gone to work on it, improving cooling and engine management so it produces 350bhp – a 10% increase – and a colossal 538lb ft of torque. To make sure the car turns as well as it goes, it also gets a host of suspension tweaks.
That all sounds very promising, but does a £67,000 executive car with a powerful diesel engine really have a place in 2023?
Well, if you can get past the fact that diesel as a form of propulsion feels as ‘in vogue’ as a goose-down-lined jacket, then absolutely. In fact, we’re going to go out on a limb and state that the D4 S is the most polished car we’ve driven so far this year.
For starters, the Alpina-tuned engine is a revelation. It produces so much shove, so ridiculously low in its rev range, that it almost feels as if you’re driving a high-performance electric car. If you put your foot down at a standstill, you can be doing 62mph just 4.8sec later. The surge of forward momentum is accompanied by a characterful bellow from the engine, and it will keep revving beyond 4000rpm when you need it to.
The real-world pace is so impressive that it’s easy to overlook the engine’s other party trick: astonishing efficiency for such a powerful car.
After a four-hour journey that took in some tight and twisty country lanes and a brisk motorway cruise, our trip computer indicated 51mpg. The D4 S has a 59-litre fuel tank, so it should be good for at least 600 miles – around double the range of the Performance Battery version of the Porsche Taycan 4S electric car.
Speaking of range, the suspension settings Alpina’s engineers have conjured up for the D4 S do a great deal to bolster its long-distance c
