I’ve been fortunate enough to meet the former Alpina owner and CEO Andreas Bovensiepen, hang around a track with him, and then share a drink afterwards. He’s a fascinating man who loves to go fast and isn’t the type to sit still. So when BMW bought Alpina from the Bovensiepen family, I knew he’d be busy afterwards, making very cool, fast cars. Thankfully, I was right. Andreas and his team have been very busy building a new car company bearing the family name, starting with the very pretty Bovensiepen Zagato, based on the BMW M4. But now, they’ve come out with something even more interesting: the Bovensiepen 05 GT, which is the ultimate BMW M5 and probably what the car should have been all along.
One glance at this new Bovensiepen 05 GT and you can tell exactly what its origins are. It very clearly started out life as an M5 Touring. However, Bovensiepen’s team did exactly what Alpina used to do: it took a good BMW and made it even better. In the case of the M5 Touring, it’s now even better looking. Thank former BMW designer Frank Stephenson for that, as he was hired to do the 05 GT’s design. And while it still looks like BMW’s car, it’s far more subdued.
Bovensiepen
The grille was modified, and the kidneys were sort of blended together, the front bumper is far more subtle than the M5’s, and the rear bumper is far quieter, even if its quad Akrapovic exhausts won’t be. It’s a handsome looking car, one that fixes all of the ostentatiousness of the M5 Touring. Inside, big squishy thrones are wrapped in Lavalina leather, as is the steering wheel, and everything else is made of leather. However, it looks like Bovensiepen kept the rest of the cabin as it was from BMW’s factory, with the same confusing gauge screen and enough ambient lighting to see from space. Sadly, Bovensiepen didn’t keep Alpina’s iconic wheel design. Perhaps that’s part of BMW’s ownership now, too.
Under the skin, Bovensiepen made some improvements, in very typical Alpina fashion. The powertrain is still a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 hybrid setup, but power was added. A lot of it. Instead of the M5 Touring’s already massive 717 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque, the 05 GT makes 790 horsepower and 811 lb-ft of torque. And get this—it weighs basically the same as the M5 Touring. So the power increase will felt certainly be felt. The suspension was tuned, with new Eibach springs, a new strut tower brace, and modified support bearings. Knowing what Andreas did with Alpinas back in the day, I’m confident that the 05 GT’s ride will be a near-perfect balance of performance and comfort.
Bovensiepen
Customers who dish out the $231,000 starting price can customize their car pretty extensively, from different interior leathers to a trunk floor lined entirely in Alcantara (that seems like it’d get gross very quickly). And anyone who wants one will be able to soon, as Bovensiepen expects the first car to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2026. And while that starting price is shockingly high, this 05 GT looks like the ultimate M5 and it’s also a way back into Alpina, the way it used to be.