- Bovensiepen has launched an online configurator for its Zagato coupe.
- The BMW M4-based car features a new face and double-bubble roof.
- An auto-shifting, twin-turbo 3.0-liter six punts it to 62 mph in 3.3 secs.
Now that BMW has taken full control of Alpina, the former Alpina owners are exploring new projects, but not straying too far from their roots. This month, they’re taking orders for the Bovensiepen Zagato and have fired up an online configurator, but you’ll have to be seriously rich to turn your lunch break daydream build into a fully drivable car.
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Named after current chief and former Alpina boss, Andreas Bovensiepen, whose dad Burkard founded Alpina in 1965, the new company showcased this, its first product, at last year’s Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza. The Bovensiepen Zagato was then hurled up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed a couple of months later to prove it’s not a case of style over substance.
It’s the style that’ll sell this car, though, presuming potential owners can get past the eye-watering €369,495 ($435,000) price. Keep in mind that in Germany, the standard 480 hp M4 starts at €98,500 topping out at €109,600 for the 530 hp M4 Competition. That puts this car at roughly the cost of nearly four regular M4s, or more than three Competitions.
Designed in conjunction with legendary Italian styling house Zagato, the Bovensiepen Zagato is a heavily modified BMW M4 with a radically different front-end treatment that looks weirdly like the nose on a 2019 Chevy Camaro. The one Americans hated so much, Chevy had to immediately redesign.
Carbon Skin
BMW fans, though, will more likely draw parallels with the i8 hybrid sports car, and there are more i8 echoes in the reverse-scooped hood and the way the rear quarter panels wrap across the rear bumper. In total, more than 400 parts, including a full set of carbon panels, are applied to the 4-Series, a process that takes over 250 hours.
You’ll find Bovensiepen’s name on the nose and above the rear license plate, but not Zagato’s: the design house instead lets its signature double-bubble roof do most of the talking, though there is a small Zagato badge on each front fender.
Leather And Alcantara
Move inside, however, and it’s hard not to feel a little underwhelmed. No doubt the optional Lavalina full leather cabin treatment (and the endless configuration possibilities) are way beyond what BMW offers, but it’s very obviously just a better-trimmed version of a $55,000 4-Series cabin.
Bovensiepen is coy about which BMW and engine combo it uses as a base, though reports from the launch last year put the donor as an M4 Competition with that car’s mandatory eight-speed automatic transmission. But where the M4 Comp is rated at 523 hp (530 PS), Bovensiepen says its car is good for 602 hp (611 PS), helped in part by a lightweight titanium Akrapovic exhaust. Zero to 62 mph (100 km/h) takes 3.3 seconds.
The other big differentiator between an M4 Competition and the Zagato is exclusivity. M4s are everywhere in major cities, but Bovensiepen only plans to build 99 of these from its former Alpina HQ in Buchloe, Germany. Want to fantasise about bagging one of those 99 and speccing it to your taste? Check out the configurator here.
