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2015 BMW Alpina B6 xDrive Gran Coupe

Alpina has been lovingly modifying BMWs for half a century, but as we learned during a tour of the company's HQ in Buchloe, Germany, Alpina has been in the wine distribution business for nearly as long. The company has an estimated million bottles on reserve in two warehouses and a beautiful wine cellar/tasting room on property in western Bavaria, just yards from where its 1,500 hand-crafted automobiles per year are produced.
What does that have to do with the new B6 Gran Coupe? Well, it may help make sense of the overall character of Alpina's automobiles, especially vis-à-vis the similarly priced, similarly powerful M Cars that BMW sells in far greater numbers. Alpinas are built by wine connoisseurs for wine connoisseurs, or wine connoisseur types; they are not rip-snortin' racecars for the road - that's M's domain. Alpinas are esoteric, rich in character and nuanced. But make no mistake: they are very, very fast.
Our brief first drive of the B6 Gran Coupe - the only 6 Series-based Alpina we'll get in the US for 2015 - took place on German autobahns and Austrian alpine roads, where the car is more at home than anywhere in the world, both literally and figuratively. With 540 horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque on tap from its twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 and xDrive all-wheel drive, the B6 is said to be able to hit 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds on its way to a top speed of 198 mph, a massive 43 mph faster than the M6, which is electronically limited to 155 mph. Yet even at insane speeds - we saw an indicated 190 mph on one particularly lonely stretch of Autobahn - the B6 feels more luxurious than sporty, taking the countenance of a low-slung Bentley Continental GT or an Aston Martin Rapide S, not a knife-edged supercar. It doesn't feel scintillating like a Porsche 911 GT2; rather it feels rock steady, like the 4,780-pound luxury sedan it is.

2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe

Is This A Great Idea For An M Model?
The BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe is already an issue of large debate. The essential business case for the car is that it's more distinctive than a straight 5 or 6 Series, and has much of the sense of space and luxury of a 7 Series. It has the wheelbase of a 5 Series, the relative width of a 6 Series, and an exterior length close to the standard wheelbase 7 Series. And, as we reported in our drive of the 640i Gran Coupe in May 2012, the 6 Series Gran Coupe costs pretty much the same as the 7 Series, engine trim for engine trim. The sedan (coupe?) is therefore a proposal clearly meant for an extremely particular clientele. There's no news yet on how well exactly the 6 Series Gran Coupe is selling in its chief markets, but we are curious. The Germans frequently tend not to break out their sales figures that way, mixing sales of the Gran Coupe in with the two-door 6 Series.
And, so, we have now arrived at the inevitable point where the M version must be introduced. Say howdy to the $113,000 2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe (actually $115,195 for starters with all of the taxes added). That's $4,650 more than the also highly priced M6 coupe. Let the vehement debates begin. The upcoming 2014 Audi RS7 should be priced right at this level as well, and the Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG (perhaps with an S iteration in the next allotment we get Stateside) should go for roughly the same.

BMW brings burlesque, Warhol, M1 and 6 Series Grand Coupe to Paris Photo LA

BMW has worked with Paris Photo for ten years. This year, the photography exposition lands in Paramount Studios in Los Angeles for the first time, and BMW is not only coming with it, the Bavarians are bringing the Art Car that started it all: the 1979 M1 painted by Andy Warhol. For those attending the show, there will also be making-of video of Warhol working on the car - but if you remember the mini lecture that EVO magazine's Henry Catchpole gave on the Art Cars, you'll remember that Warhol finished the car so quickly that the cameraman barely had time to get the film rolling.
With that will also be a series of photos of the BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe dropped into noir scenes accompanied by burlesque models, all taken by photographer Uwe Düttmann. It's the first time they'll be exhibited at Paris Photo. You can check out a few of them in the high-res gallery above, and there's a press release below with more info.