Alpina's secret V8 X5 prototype became BMW's 10,467-car X5 4.6is
Twenty-five years before BMW took over Alpina, it took over one of its SUVs
Photos of a scrapped Alpina prototype surface this week, together with the story behind it from former Alpina chief Andreas Bovensiepen. Around the turn of the century, Alpina put the V8 from its B10 saloon into BMW's first X5. BMW liked the result enough to take the project in-house, and the car became the X5 4.6is. The prototype ended its working life on parts runs for BMW Classic.
BMW's Wolfgang Reitzle asked Alpina for a faster E53 X5
BMW development chief Wolfgang Reitzle and board member Burkhard Göschel judged that the original E53 X5 chassis could take more than its 4.4-litre V8, and Reitzle called his friend Burkard Bovensiepen, Alpina's founder. Buchloe fitted the 4.6-litre V8 from the E39 B10 V8 into an E53 body and built the car almost entirely in-house. The photos, shared by collector Todd Goldberg, show purple and blue leather across the seats, doors and console, and an Alpina steering wheel.
Reitzle wanted 3,500 Alpina X5s a year, more than Buchloe could build
Reitzle first wanted Alpina to build the car itself, at around 3,500 a year. Buchloe could not absorb that: even in 2021, BMW put Alpina's entire annual output at around 2,000 cars. After BMW executives drove the prototype, BMW offered to take the project over, and Bovensiepen, never keen on an Alpina badge on an SUV, agreed. Alpina supplied the heavy-duty engine internals, including the crankcase, and BMW produced the engine as the M62TUB46.
The BMW X5 4.6is made 347 hp, 7 hp more than Alpina's own B10 V8
The X5 4.6is made 347 hp at 5,700 rpm and 480 Nm, drove all four wheels through a five-speed automatic and reached 100 km/h in 6.5 seconds, with a 240 km/h top speed. Its 20-inch wheels carried 315-section rear tyres. Alpina's own B10 V8 saloon of 1997 made 340 hp and 470 Nm from the same 4.6 litres, so BMW's production SUV ended up slightly stronger than the Alpina it borrowed from.
BMW built 10,467 X5 4.6is between December 2001 and September 2003
BMW Classic counts 10,467 X5 4.6is built between December 2001 and September 2003, a figure an owners' registry matches, with 4,326 in Black Sapphire. The 2003 facelift replaced it with the X5 4.8is, which used BMW's own N62 V8 rather than an Alpina-derived design. The prototype stayed with BMW Classic as a workhorse for daily parts runs, and was then scrapped. The E53 still draws builders who want more, such as the one-off V10 X5 built by Kith.
The Alpina XB7 brought an Alpina SUV back to Spartanburg in 2020
The X5 4.6is was built in BMW's Spartanburg plant in South Carolina, and so was the Alpina XB7, which in 2020 became the first Alpina built outside Buchloe. The last of them, the 120-unit XB7 Manufaktur, enters production there this month. Alpina itself did not launch an SUV until the diesel XD3 in 2013.
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The X5 4.6is is the most successful Alpina that never wore the name, and Buchloe comes out of this story well. Alpina did the engineering, handed BMW a car it could build at a scale Buchloe never could, and let the credit go. More than 10,000 buyers got an Alpina-designed V8 in a family SUV two decades before Alpina sold one under its own badge in America.
Twenty-five years on, the arrangement has flipped. BMW has owned the Alpina name outright since January, and BMW Alpina is now its own brand inside the group, while the Bovensiepen family and its engineers stayed in Buchloe and sign cars such as the Bovensiepen Spider with their own name. The 4.6is is the clearest evidence that the method mattered more than the badge, and the first road tests of BMW Alpina's 7 Series-based car will show which of the two BMW actually bought.
