The Bovensiepen Zagato Is A Rebodied BMW M4 From Alpina’s Founding Family

Things are changing for Alpina, the small German outfit that’s long been making BMWs faster, cooler and stripier. In 2022, the company became a fully-fledged subsidiary of BMW, and its latest model, the 8 Series-based B8 GT, is likely to be the last of the old-school Alpinas before Munich ownership takes it in a new direction.

Fear not if you’re a fan of tuned, lux-ified Beemers, though, because there’s a new name in town: Bovensiepen. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Burkard Bovensiepen, who died in 2023, was the man who founded Alpina back in 1965.

This new company has been founded by his sons, Andreas and Florian, and it’s even based in Buchloe, the same town where Alpina was born. But while the Bovensiepen brothers look set to continue their father’s legacy of taking BMWs and giving them more power and a boost in luxury, they’re going a little further in the visual department than some pinstripes and multispoke alloys.

Bovensiepen’s first car is simply named the Zagato, the famed Italian styling house handling the rather significant changes made to the styling over its BMW M4 base car. While the head- and tail lights and overall silhouette remain the same, the bodywork has been thoroughly overhauled, with a totally new front end treatment and Zagato’s signature double-bubble roof incorporated.

The fundamentals of the interior are pretty familiar too, but everything can be retrimmed in a selection of materials including Alcantara and high-end Lavalina leather. As is usually the case with these small-series cars, customers can request pretty much any colour combination they like for both the outside and inside.

Mechanically, it uses the same 3.0-litre twin-turbo straight-six as the M4, but uprated to the tune of 603bhp and 516lb ft. This, says the company, means it’s good for 0-62mph in 3.3 seconds and a top speed of over 186mph.

The Zagato also gets a set of Bilstein Damptronic adaptive dampers, and a titanium exhaust system from Akrapovic, the latter said to be 40 per cent lighter than a conventional system.

Bovensiepen hasn’t said how many Zagatos it plans to build or how much you’ll need for one, just that it’ll be produced in small numbers. Whatever BMW plans to do with the Alpina badge, though, we hope some of the company’s ultra-cool legacy is carried on by this spiritual successor.