Japan has always loved Alpina. The Buchloe company's quiet, fast BMWs suit a country where the best cars often hide in plain sight. Walk around Tokyo for a few days with a camera and the evidence piles up: the multi-spoke wheels, the gold-and-blue deco stripes, the small "ALPINA" script where a BMW badge would say M.
The E39 B10
A white E39 5 Series with "ALPINA" on the boot lid and twin exhaust tips is a B10, built from 1997 to 2004 with either a 4.6-litre V8 of up to 347 PS or a 3.3-litre straight-six. Ours was parked on a residential street, a torii gate in the background, like any other family saloon.
A few days later, another E39 in deep blue rolled past on the classic Alpina multi-spoke wheels.
The E60 B5
The E60 B5 is the sleeper's sleeper: BMW's 4.4-litre V8 with a centrifugal supercharger, 500 PS and 700 Nm, built from 2005 to 2007, followed by the 530 PS B5 S. In Alpina blue, with the deco stripes and the "ALPINA" lip spoiler, it looks only slightly more serious than a normal 5 Series. That's the whole point.
The Roadster S
The rarest of the three: an E85 Z4 that appears to be an Alpina Roadster S, the 300 PS roadster Alpina built from 2003 to 2005. Hard top on, Alpina wheels, dark blue paint.
Sources: Wikipedia: Alpina.
A brand changing hands
Alpina's story is changing. BMW announced in 2022 that it was buying the Alpina brand, and from 1 January 2026 the name passed fully to BMW. Cars like these, built when Alpina was still the family company in Buchloe, are the end of an era.
Sources: BMW Group press release and CAR magazine.
For more of Tokyo's streets, see eleven frames of Tokyo, and for a very different BMW, the Judd V8 E36 M3.
Photos: One Breath Pictures.
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