And the replacement for my JCW Mini is...

[Bob Fossil]

An Alpina D3 BiTurbo Switchtronic.

Picked it up yesterday, have to say I'm mightily impressed with it. The pics aren't exactly great (I've been too busy driving it), will update with something better when I have time.

[pmanson]

Looks very nice!

[ScottishSamurai]

Very very nice looking car.

Are all Alpina' still using the same wheels? They are lovely but would be interesting to see an update of them, maybe just me

[JQ]

ScottishSamurai said:

Very very nice looking car.

Are all Alpina' still using the same wheels? They are lovely but would be interesting to see an update of them, maybe just me

They're great fun to clean ! ! ! However, they do look great so why change them, plus I'd argue they are the most identifiable part of an Alpina and form part of their Brand Identity.

Car looks great by the way. Almost got the original D3 when the first came out, but opted for the 330d Msport instead. The Bi-Turbo make more sense to me over the original.

[Bob Fossil]

ScottishSamurai said:

Are all Alpina' still using the same wheels?

Yeah, they do have an alterative, "Dynamic" (same as fitted to Evo's BiTurbo), but I'm a bit of a purist so asked them to change them to "Classic" on my car.

One pretty cool featre of this design is that the valves are hidden behind the centre caps, which is accessed by a key - so no-one letting my tyres down for a laugh...

Edited by Bob Fossil on Monday 12th April 11:41

[dibbly dobbler]

Really nice Bob !

How do you find the performance ? And the ride ? (My 330i on RFTs is killing me with all the bloody potholes around these days !)

[soad]

Looks great - very nice.

[Bob Fossil]

dibbly dobbler said:

How do you find the performance ? And the ride ? (My 330i on RFTs is killing me with all the bloody potholes around these days !)

The performance is pretty good - as usual with diseasels it's all about the the torque but the mid-range is very impressive.

The amazing thing is the ride. It's far, far better than anything I've ever had and compared to the run-flat BMW-group cars I've had previously (120d M-Sport on 18's and the MINI on 17's) it's in a different league altogether.

The Switchtronic box is very impressive too (although it's my first auto / semi-auto so I don't have a lot to compare against).

Best of all is that a weekend of hoonage has produced an MPG figure of 41mpg!

[dibbly dobbler]

Bob Fossil said:

dibbly dobbler said:

How do you find the performance ? And the ride ? (My 330i on RFTs is killing me with all the bloody potholes around these days !)

The performance is pretty good - as usual with diseasels it's all about the the torque but the mid-range is very impressive.

The amazing thing is the ride. It's far, far better than anything I've ever had and compared to the run-flat BMW-group cars I've had previously (120d M-Sport on 18's and the MINI on 17's) it's in a different league altogether.

The Switchtronic box is very impressive too (although it's my first auto / semi-auto so I don't have a lot to compare against).

Best of all is that a weekend of hoonage has produced an MPG figure of 41mpg!

Damn - I really like the sound of that ! I must be getting old as the poor ride on my 330 is really getting to me just now

Need to wait for them to get a wee bit cheaper though as my budget won't stretch beyond mid 20s.

Thanks Bob.