BMW Alpina B7 vs Chevrolet Corvette

What's the difference?

The BMW Alpina B7 is a special car destined (like all Alpinas) to be a collector's item, due to its rarity and exclusivity. I asked Alpina just how many current model B7s there are in Australia and the answer was "less than five", which is just as mysterious as most people find the car in general.

The B7 is fast – too fast to enjoy legally on Australian roads – but it is also supremely comfortable and well appointed. For Alpina fans lucky enough to be driven in on,e this would make for a truly rare and niche way to be chauffeured.

The Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is truly a supercar offering outstanding dynamics for a lot less money being asked by European rivals - just make sure it's not your only car for those times when you're in a hurry.

This is a good place to start because the B7 looks just like the 750Li it's based on, until you see the first tell-tale signs that it's not one.

There's the front wing with Alpina lettering and the boot-top spoiler, the graphics, which run the length of the car, and the 20-spoke wheels with Alpina badging.

This is late '70s, early '80s styling at its best (and possibly worst), but these special cars can pull off the irony-free look because this is how Alpina BMWs have rolled since 1975, when the E21 320-based Alpina A1/3 was launched.

BMW badges have been left on the bonnet and boot, but there's Alpina B7 BiTurbo lettering in place of the 7 Series identifier.

Most people walked by it in the street thinking it was just a big BMW, others scratched their heads wondering what I'd done to my big German limo and a handful almost dropped to their knees in praise and wonderment at spotting a rare beast like this in the wild.

These people all had their own Alpina stories – one was the third generation of an Alpina-owning family. You become a member a small and passionate club when you buy into this rarefied brand.

The standard B7's cabin is close to identical to the luxurious interior of the 750Li, save for Alpina-embossed stitching in the headrests of the soft, leather seats, the virtual instrument cluster and the Alpina plaque on the centre console denoting the build number.

The B7 is long, low and wide at just under 5.3m end to end, 1.5m tall and 1.9m across. A 3.2m wheelbase means cabin room is more than just spacious.

The B7 rolls off the Dingolfing production line in Germany and is then handed over to Alpina's facility in Buckle, where significant changes take place. Read on to find out how the B7 is different from a regular 750Li.

We’re talking about the closest thing to a real-life Hot Wheels car here. See, while Ferraris look elegant to me like expensive jewellery, Lambourghinis like cheese graters and McLaren’s look like slippery alien spacecraft, the Corvette Z06 looks exactly like an American supercar should - an unapologetic, ludicrous beast. And I love that. 

Dialing up the wild is that enormous carbon wing and front splitter with dive planes thanks to the Z07 package. Just a word of warning, though, the front splitter and dive planes stick out not just visually, but in the sense that I walked into them often and my ankles still have the scars.

I can’t recall the last time I drove a car with carbon-fibre wheels either - these are the biggest rims fitted to a Corvette and they’re wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R ultra performance tyres (275/30ZR20 front and 345/25ZR21 rear) that they look like oil drums on their sides.

The best angle? The rear - straight on. Those headlights. 

Wait, no, it’s from above - so you can see the V8 through the glass hatch.

Or it could be front-on looking like a giant shovel.. 

OK, there are no bad angles.. 

The Corvette Z06 is long at 4734mm end-to-end, broad at 2024mm wide and its height is a both a sitting-on-the-road-low and numerically pleasing 1234mm.

The plainness of the cabin might be a let down to some people after all the exterior wildness. Ferraris and Lambourghis offer extravagant and exotic interiors, but the Corvette’s innards are almost completely void of flare. 

The media screen is small (8.0 inches), switches and controls for windows and air vents are basic, and the huge dividing ‘wall’ between the pilot and passenger might be a bit much for some.

That ‘wall’ is dotted with buttons and while it may look very 'fighter jet cockpit', they’re just climate control switches. Sitting in the passenger seat is a lonely place with no screen visibility nor easy access to controls - I'd actually call this out as a bit of a fail compared to the interiors from Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini with their screen-filled cabins offering co-pilots something to do.

Yes, it feels a bit premium with the Nappa leather and the sports seats, but it could feel more special.

All of this plainness, however, is saved from boredom by the glass window behind the seats allowing you to peer into the engine bay at the V8 like at a reptile enclosure at the zoo.

The B7 is a five-seater limousine although with the fold-down rear centre armrest which houses the media control panel the back is really set up to carry two.

That 3.2m wheelbase means cabin space is enormous. At 191cm tall I can sit behind my driving position with about 30cm between my knees and the seatback. Those rear doors open wide and the entrance is huge, making entry and exit almost as easy as just walking through a doorway. The air suspension also rises and lowers the B7's ride height for better access.

Storage is excellent, with two cupholders and door pockets for rear passengers, along with the area inside the centre armrest.

Up front, the driver and co-pilot have a deep centre console storage bin with split-opening lid, two cupholders and door pockets.

Luggage space is good, with a 515-litre boot.

Supercars don’t tend to be built with practicality as a priority but this two-door, two-seat beastie is spacious enough even for me at 185cm tall with plenty of room in the footwell and loads of elbow-, knee-, and headroom. 

Cabin storage is limited to a glove box, door pockets, two cupholders, and a wireless phone charger on the bulkhead behind the seats.

As you can see from the images there’s a boot at the rear which will fit smaller bags and a small boot in the front.

I did the school run in the Corvette a few times (I know, lucky kid) and I can tell you a bass guitar in its case and a school bag, plus my own large handbag make for a cramped cabin. A Kia Carnival the Corvette ain’t, but it’s not trying to be one and compared to its rivals it does well for practicality.

Almost never does a car with a list price of almost $400K get full marks, but here we are and I’ll tell you why. The Corvette Z06 in its standard form lists for $336,000 and this is outstanding value compared to its supercar rivals such as the Ferrari F8 Tributo for $484,888, or a McLaren 750S for $585,800 or even an entry-grade Lamborghini Huracan, the EVO, for $383,187. 

Australia gets the top 3LZ trim, with the local standard features list for the Corvette Z06 including Nappa leather upholstery, GT2 bucket seats, a 12-inch digital instrument display, a 14-speaker Bose sound system, red seat belts, wireless phone charging, carbon-fibre and suede microfibre trimmed steering wheel, a media system with sat-nav plus wireless Apple CarsPlay and Android Auto, power seats, heated steering wheel, dual-zone climate control,  heated and ventilated seats and a head-up display.

Our test car was fitted with plenty of options including the Z07 Performance Package that brings carbon-fibre everything. We’re talking the enormous carbon-fibre rear wing and aero kit with side skirts and a front splitter with dive planes –and there are the carbon-fibre wheels (20-inch at the front and 21-inch at the rear). 

The Z07 package also brings a more hardcore suspension tune and carbon ceramic brakes for ridiculously good stopping power.

The Z06 has the most powerful V8 engine in the Corvette range, too, and we'll get to that soon.

Alpina takes the 4.4-litre twin turbo V8 from the BMW 750Li and rebuilds the engine by hand. Alpina fits its own turbochargers, air-intake set -up, high-capacity cooling system and Akrapovic quad exhaust. Output is 447kW and 800Nm – an increase of a whopping 117kW and 150Nm over the 750Li's grunt.

It's interesting to note that the V12-powered 760Li has a smidge more power, at 448kW, and the same torque output as the B7.

How fast is the B7? Supercar fast – the B7 has a top speed of 330km/h, which will see it outrun a McLaren 570 and almost keep up with a Ferrari F12. That's quite incredible for a 2.3-tonne limousine with three TVs on board. A 0-100km/h time of 4.2 seconds is also hugely impressive.

In comparison, a 750Li has a 0-100km/h time of a not-too-shabby 4.7 seconds, but the car is electronically limited to 250km/h.

An eight-speed automatic transmission shifts gears smoothly, although a little slowly in Normal mode, while Sport and Sport+ add urgency and harder shifts.

Finally, the B7 is all-wheel drive, and those rear wheels are designed to steer slightly for better cornering performance.

The 5.5-litre naturally aspirated V8 in the Z06 makes 475kW and 595Nm. That’s a lot more power than the Corvette Stingray’s V8, which produces 369kW. The GT3 racecar version of the Z06 uses a derived version of the 5.5-litre V8, and actually it shares 70 per cent of the engineering components. 

Revving to a high 8600rpm the Z06’s V8 lets out a high-pitched scream when pushed hard, much like a Ferrari because like many Ferraris the Z06 has a flatplane crank V8 - actually it’s one of the largest flatplane V8s to go into a production car.  

Corvettes are now mid-engined cars and the Z06 has an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission that changes gears quicker than I can blink, sending all that mumbo straight to the rear wheels.

Acceleration comes hard, fast and loud with the Z06 able to boot itself from 0-100km/h in 2.9 seconds. That beautifully linear acceleration with no turbos will pull you all the way towards its top speed of 313km/h.

The B7 is probably not the car to own if you're concerned about either fuel prices or emissions, but then the twin-turbo V8 may not be as thirsty as you'd think, with Alpina stating that, after a combination of urban and open-road driving, you should only use 9.6L/100km.

My time in the B7 saw me double that usage but this could have had something to do with me turning off the stop-start system and driving in Sport mode constantly.

As with practicality, fuel efficiency isn’t the Corvette’s priority and after driving it daily for a week in the suburbs, city and a few dashes out to more open country roads the Z06 was using an average of 23.8L/100km, according to the trip computer.

Luckily the fuel tank is pretty big at 70 litres and with an official combined fuel consumption of just under 16L/100km you have a range of 438km… in theory.

Who on Earth thinks a BMW 750Li isn't fast enough or comfortable enough, even with all its horsepower, luxurious cabin and technology? Alpina, that's who.

Redevelopment of the 4.4-litre V8 with new turbochargers, a high-capacity cooling system, different air suspension set-up and an exhaust system made by Akrapovic have made this already exceptional car better. Better to drive and better to be driven in.

The ride, even on those 21-inch wheels and low-profile Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres (255/35 ZR21 on the front and 295/30 ZR 21 on the rear) is incredibly comfortable. I drove it and also had a chance to recline in the back and be chauffeured (by our photographer) and the ride was so composed and refined it was hard to believe I was travelling along some truly awful urban roads with their cracked and pot-holed surfaces.

And it's quiet, too. Which will suit those in the back being transported swiftly from the airport to their next meeting, but if you're after a loud and angry exhaust note then you won't find it in the B7. Sure, from the outside at full throttle the B7 has a menacing growl, but this isn't a BMW M car that will bark and snarl. 
See, while BMW's M division makes brutal, loud, high-performance versions of their regular cars, Alpina makes comfortable, stealthy, high-performance ones.

All-wheel drive provides fantastic traction and ensures that grunt doesn't just tear the tyres off those rims when you sneeze on the throttle.

And while the air-suspension is soft and comfortable, adaptive dampers adjust for when the road goes twisty, providing impressive handling for a heavy and long car.

Really, though, the B7 is built for long, endless stretches of roads, and the acceleration beyond 100km/h is almost as startling as that from 0-100km/h, as it wants to push straight past 200km/h towards that 330km/h top speed.

Which, unless you know a good lawyer or happen to be one, will send you straight to jail. Yes, the B7 is probably too much car for Australian roads. Only on a German autobahn would a B7 be fully at home.

I felt like I was given a Melbourne Cup-winning racehorse for a week but could only ride it in my suburban backyard.

What the Corvette Z06 is like to drive really depends where you drive it. Our suburb has a ridiculous number of speed humps, which are like the Corvette Z06’s Kryptonite thanks to its very limited ground clearance and a carbon front splitter that almost skims the road at the best of times.

This made the Z06 one of the slowest fast cars I’ve ever piloted. My son would beg me to drive him to school in it, but the journey would take twice as long as we slowly eased over each hump while holding our breath. A lift system does raise the front of the vehicle but even then, don't breathe out.

The width and poor visibility made inching down narrow streets of parked cars a stressful exercise, too.

The Corvette Z06 is almost too much of a racecar to live with and then you let it free on an open country road and its purpose is clear - it runs like you wouldn’t believe and screams in delight all the way, while clamping itself to the road with sticky tyres, perfectly set up suspension and proper downforce.

Steering feels mainlined though to your nervous system, the pedals under your feel like your actual feet, and it all feels like a dream until you wake up again when you reach the city limits and round abouts, and traffic and yes, speed humps.

The Corvette Z06 clearly is a car that needs to be joined by other cars in your driveway, ones that don’t even notice speed humps.

Along with four airbags, the Corvette Z06 has AEB, forward collision alert, lane-keeping assistance, rear cross-traffic alert, blind-spot monitoring, auto high beam headlights and adaptive cruise control.

An ANCAP safety rating doesn't exist for any member of the Corvette and will likely never due to low volume.

The B7 is covered by BMW's three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty. Servicing is recommended every 12 months or 15,000km. The B7 is covered by BMW special vehicles servicing plan, which means services are cost-free for the first three years of the car's life.

GMSV covers the Corvette with a three-year/100,000km warranty which is short by current standards where carmakers typically offer a duration of five years/unlimited kilometres.

One of the appealing sides to the Corvette is that it’s made by a down-to-Earth American car company and a longer warranty offering peace of mind would seem more appropriate.

Service intervals are every 12 months or 12,000km, with capped-price servicing sadly unavailable.