Alpina’s take on the BMW X7, the XB7, was
snapped testing at the Nurburgring wearing less camo than ever on the bodywork. The vinyl stickers are
limited to the front end, which sports a bigger bumper with redesigned air
intakes, and at the back, where it has an updated diffuser that incorporates
the rounded quad tailpipes.
This prototype makes do without the
tuner’s badges and iconic wheel design, yet when it goes on sale, probably next
year, it will get them, as well as the model-specific Blue and Green metallic
paint finishes that will join the palette alongside the regular colors from BMW
and BMW Individual.
The already luxurious interior will be
further tweaked, with the XB7 getting new upholstery options with contrast
piping, stitching and embossing. New entry sills, floor mats and other trim
updates should be found inside, along with the Alpina logo on the instrument
dials and perhaps a hand-crafted sports steering wheel.
In addition to the tuned driving dynamics,
the full-size SUV will get a bump in power over BMW’s range-topping variant,
the 530 PS and 750 Nm of torque, M50i xDrive. The
4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 is the most probable candidate for the job and already
powers the latest Alpina B7, where it churns out 608 PS and
800 Nm of torque. While it remains unknown if it will retain the
exact same output, we expect it to go from zero to 100 km/h in just
a little over 4 seconds and max out at over 250 km/h.
