Was the BMW Idea Touring Coupe Really an ALPINA in Disguise?

Three years after its unveiling on the prestigious Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza, the beautiful BMW Idea Touring Coupe continues to spark dialog amongst lovers. The Z4-based capturing brake was met with near-universal acclaim, got here tantalizingly near manufacturing, and left many questioning: why did it by no means make it to showrooms?

However there’s one other query that keen-eyed BMW lovers have requested since day one: why did this BMW idea put on so many ALPINA-like particulars? The reply could also be extra intriguing than anybody suspected.

From Z4 to Coupe: A Persistent Dream

The story begins with designer Calvin Luk, the proficient stylist who initially labored on the Z4 and has since moved to Hyundai’s U.S. operations. The concept of a Z4 Coupe had by no means totally disappeared inside BMW’s design halls – an earlier Designworks proposal by Erik Goplen had already explored that territory.

Following the success of the limited-production 3.0 CSL, BMW design chief Adrian van Hooydonk was eager to display that such special-series tasks might turn into a daily a part of BMW’s portfolio. As they did later with the Skytop and Speedtop. Luk was tapped to develop the idea.

The ALPINA Particulars That Sparked Questions

What emerged at Villa d’Este was undeniably putting, but it surely was the small print that informed a curious story. The idea featured distinctive multi-spoke wheels that bore an uncanny resemblance to ALPINA’s signature design language. Inside, the seat trim displayed stitching patterns and leather-based high quality that appeared lifted straight from Buchloe’s playbook.

So in fact, the query was: have been these ALPINA-inspired touches or real ALPINA elements, commissioned for this particular automotive. And that raises one other query: was this idea initially supposed to put on the Buchloe badge?

A Final-Minute Id Change?

Since BMW deliberate this automotive to be offered in a restricted run at round $250,000, the advertising angle needed to be proper. Why you would possibly ask? Becase ALPINA merely doesn’t have significant coupe heritage. For many years, ALPINA has constructed its fame on luxury-performance sedans and estates. The B3, B5, B7, D3 – these are the automobiles that outline the marque. A two-door sporting coupe, nonetheless lovely, might need not aligned on the time with ALPINA’s DNA in the best way that, say, a high-performance touring automotive would.

For a BMW idea to hold so many real ALPINA touches, there should have been a cause. Whether or not that cause was an deserted branding technique or just a good deeper collaboration between Munich and Buchloe, we might by no means know with full certainty. For now, that secret nonetheless stays properly guarded throughout the BMW design crew, however what’s sure although are the unmistakable fingerprints of its potential ALPINA origins.

The whole growth of the BMW Idea Touring Coupe story is documented in Steve Saxty’s complete “BMW by Design” guide set.

What May Have Been

Would an ALPINA Z4 Touring have made business sense? Maybe not within the conventional ALPINA mould. However as we’ve seen with BMW’s latest limited-series tasks, the foundations are completely different for low-volume, high-desirability automobiles. The 3.0 CSL proved that as properly. The Touring Idea proved it once more with its overwhelmingly constructive reception.

In the long run, we received a glimpse of a lovely capturing brake that almost made manufacturing. However the lingering particulars recommend we’d have come near one thing much more intriguing: ALPINA’s first-ever coupe  within the trendy period. So it stays to be seen whether or not BMW will in the future give its personal ALPINA model a lovely and extremely fascinating coupe.