Subaru WRX vs BMW Alpina B7

What's the difference?

Possibly one of the most perfect performance cars you can drive daily for the price. Dynamic and fun to drive, but also easy to live with thanks to the drive modes for extra comfort, the high ground clearance and the practicality that comes with four doors, lots of storage and a big boot.

The tS Spec B is the priciest WRX in the range, but compared to rivals it's also great value. A car I would buy with my own money for sure.

The BMW Alpina B7 is a special car destined (like all Alpinas) to be a collector's item, due to its rarity and exclusivity. I asked Alpina just how many current model B7s there are in Australia and the answer was "less than five", which is just as mysterious as most people find the car in general.

The B7 is fast – too fast to enjoy legally on Australian roads – but it is also supremely comfortable and well appointed. For Alpina fans lucky enough to be driven in on,e this would make for a truly rare and niche way to be chauffeured.

The WRX tS Spec B stands out from its siblings with 19-inch matte-grey alloy wheels with gold Brembo brakes and if you don’t notice any of that, then surely you won’t miss the gigantic rear wing planted on the boot lid.

The air scoop jutting out of the bonnet like a pizza oven is standard across the WRX range and it looks tough. There’s the rear diffuser which also looks beefy but also a bit plasticky, and the quad exhaust, that’s nice, and so is the note which wafts out of them at idle.

The tS Spec B’s Recaro sports seats are also in other tS grades – they do look and feel good, and offer outstanding comfort and support. 

The rest of the cabin is much the same as other WRX grades with a large portrait-style screen, physical buttons for climate control, and yes, that is a traditional, mechanical handbrake you can see in images.

This is a sporty-looking although slightly outdated cabin compared with more modern rivals.

This is a good place to start because the B7 looks just like the 750Li it's based on, until you see the first tell-tale signs that it's not one.

There's the front wing with Alpina lettering and the boot-top spoiler, the graphics, which run the length of the car, and the 20-spoke wheels with Alpina badging.

This is late '70s, early '80s styling at its best (and possibly worst), but these special cars can pull off the irony-free look because this is how Alpina BMWs have rolled since 1975, when the E21 320-based Alpina A1/3 was launched.

BMW badges have been left on the bonnet and boot, but there's Alpina B7 BiTurbo lettering in place of the 7 Series identifier.

Most people walked by it in the street thinking it was just a big BMW, others scratched their heads wondering what I'd done to my big German limo and a handful almost dropped to their knees in praise and wonderment at spotting a rare beast like this in the wild.

These people all had their own Alpina stories – one was the third generation of an Alpina-owning family. You become a member a small and passionate club when you buy into this rarefied brand.

The standard B7's cabin is close to identical to the luxurious interior of the 750Li, save for Alpina-embossed stitching in the headrests of the soft, leather seats, the virtual instrument cluster and the Alpina plaque on the centre console denoting the build number.

The B7 is long, low and wide at just under 5.3m end to end, 1.5m tall and 1.9m across. A 3.2m wheelbase means cabin room is more than just spacious.

The B7 rolls off the Dingolfing production line in Germany and is then handed over to Alpina's facility in Buckle, where significant changes take place. Read on to find out how the B7 is different from a regular 750Li.

What’s so appealing about the WRX is that despite it being a performance car, it’s based on a regular 'small' sedan and with that comes all the practicality of a four-door, five-seater with a big 411-litre boot.

Space inside is excellent with plenty of room up front, while rear legroom is ample enough for me, at 189cm tall, to sit behind my driving position with plenty of headroom, too.

That all said the Recaro seats up front are on the snug side and I know they’re supposed to be, but I’m just saying they might not suit everybody – and by that I mean everybody.

Those with long legs might also find they have to adjust their driving position when letting out the clutch.

Big door pockets throughout, four cupholders, and hidey-holes for items throughout make for good cabin storage.

There are four USB ports and one 12V outlet, but no wireless phone charging to be found.

The B7 is a five-seater limousine although with the fold-down rear centre armrest which houses the media control panel the back is really set up to carry two.

That 3.2m wheelbase means cabin space is enormous. At 191cm tall I can sit behind my driving position with about 30cm between my knees and the seatback. Those rear doors open wide and the entrance is huge, making entry and exit almost as easy as just walking through a doorway. The air suspension also rises and lowers the B7's ride height for better access.

Storage is excellent, with two cupholders and door pockets for rear passengers, along with the area inside the centre armrest.

Up front, the driver and co-pilot have a deep centre console storage bin with split-opening lid, two cupholders and door pockets.

Luggage space is good, with a 515-litre boot.

The B7 lists for $389,955, while a 750li is about $319,000. At this level, $70K seems like a downright reasonable premium to pay for a faster, more powerful, better handling and comfier version of the 750Li.

In this case you're paying more but getting more, although standard features are close to identical. There's adaptive LED headlights, head-up display, night vision with pedestrian detection, a 10.25-inch touch screen up front and two screens in the second row for TV and other media functions.

There's a reversing camera, sat nav, harman/kardon surround stereo and Apple CarPlay. There's leather upholstery, seat massagers in the front and rear, four-zone climate control, heated and ventilated front and rear seats, front and rear parking sensors, auto tailgate, sunblinds for the rear and rear-side windows and proximity key.

The safety features are listed in the section below, and that list is also impressive.

Rivals to the B7 include the Mercedes-AMG S63, which lists for $375,000, the $331,700 Audi S8 and even the Bentley Flying Spur, which almost matches its price at $389,500.

Who doesn’t love the sound of a boxer engine? Well, probably your neighbours if you own a WRX. And while the tS Spec B doesn’t have any more power than any of the other WRXs – with it sharing the same 2.4-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder boxer engine as the rest of the line-up – the 202kW and 350Nm feel like the perfect amount of power and torque for this package.

It’s probably been about six months since I last drove a car with a manual gearbox, and that shows how rare they’re becoming when you’re testing a new car nearly every week.

The six-speed manual in the tS Spec B has satisfying clunky shifts and a heavy-feeling clutch pedal, but it all plays along perfectly with this engine, sending the drive to all four wheels.

If you’re looking for a version of the tS Spec B with an automatic transmission you’ll be searching forever because this grade only comes with a manual gearbox. There are WRXs with autos – well, a CVT – the entry grade, the RS and the tS.

Alpina takes the 4.4-litre twin turbo V8 from the BMW 750Li and rebuilds the engine by hand. Alpina fits its own turbochargers, air-intake set -up, high-capacity cooling system and Akrapovic quad exhaust. Output is 447kW and 800Nm – an increase of a whopping 117kW and 150Nm over the 750Li's grunt.

It's interesting to note that the V12-powered 760Li has a smidge more power, at 448kW, and the same torque output as the B7.

How fast is the B7? Supercar fast – the B7 has a top speed of 330km/h, which will see it outrun a McLaren 570 and almost keep up with a Ferrari F12. That's quite incredible for a 2.3-tonne limousine with three TVs on board. A 0-100km/h time of 4.2 seconds is also hugely impressive.

In comparison, a 750Li has a 0-100km/h time of a not-too-shabby 4.7 seconds, but the car is electronically limited to 250km/h.

An eight-speed automatic transmission shifts gears smoothly, although a little slowly in Normal mode, while Sport and Sport+ add urgency and harder shifts.

Finally, the B7 is all-wheel drive, and those rear wheels are designed to steer slightly for better cornering performance.

The WRX tS Spec B manual really likes its fuel – it’s a hungry beastie and everybody who’s about to get into the WRX life should be aware that, like most petrol performance cars, it’s not super fuel efficient.

Subaru is beautifully honest with its fuel consumption figures, which have the the WRX tS Spec B using 10.4L/100km in combined driving and 14.2L/100km in urban environment, which is so close to what we recorded - ours was 14.1/100km after mainly urban driving. You'll also have to feed it 95 RON.

The fuel tank is a healthy 63 litres in volume and that should give you a range of 606km – in theory. Do not test this theoretical range somewhere remote, okay?

The B7 is probably not the car to own if you're concerned about either fuel prices or emissions, but then the twin-turbo V8 may not be as thirsty as you'd think, with Alpina stating that, after a combination of urban and open-road driving, you should only use 9.6L/100km.

My time in the B7 saw me double that usage but this could have had something to do with me turning off the stop-start system and driving in Sport mode constantly.

This may sound strange, but a few months ago I was squished into the tiny cockpit of a 2025 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 sitting at the traffic lights wishing I was in the 2020 Subaru WRX STI beside me. And having driven so many supercars and muscle cars in the past, many costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, I still see the WRX as being such a perfect daily driver performance car.

Sure, it doesn't have Porsche 911 dynamics or the straight-line acceleration of many electric cars, but it's the way the way this boxer engine interacts so beautifully the six-speed manual gearbox, combined with sticky all-wheel drive, a wonderful balance and such direct steering that make the WRX ts Spec B feel exactly right.

The tS Spec B is very much at home in the suburbs dotted with roundabouts and obstacles like speed bumps, but they all become part of the fun of driving this car in the same way that when you let it loose and open road it performs happily and so well, too.

The suspension does feel firm, but part of the big news of this tS Spec B is that it now has a drive mode function and this allow you to adjust the suspension, the steering and the throttle response to either sporty or comfort settings. This just makes this car an even more agreeable thing to live with daily.

Who on Earth thinks a BMW 750Li isn't fast enough or comfortable enough, even with all its horsepower, luxurious cabin and technology? Alpina, that's who.

Redevelopment of the 4.4-litre V8 with new turbochargers, a high-capacity cooling system, different air suspension set-up and an exhaust system made by Akrapovic have made this already exceptional car better. Better to drive and better to be driven in.

The ride, even on those 21-inch wheels and low-profile Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres (255/35 ZR21 on the front and 295/30 ZR 21 on the rear) is incredibly comfortable. I drove it and also had a chance to recline in the back and be chauffeured (by our photographer) and the ride was so composed and refined it was hard to believe I was travelling along some truly awful urban roads with their cracked and pot-holed surfaces.

And it's quiet, too. Which will suit those in the back being transported swiftly from the airport to their next meeting, but if you're after a loud and angry exhaust note then you won't find it in the B7. Sure, from the outside at full throttle the B7 has a menacing growl, but this isn't a BMW M car that will bark and snarl. 
See, while BMW's M division makes brutal, loud, high-performance versions of their regular cars, Alpina makes comfortable, stealthy, high-performance ones.

All-wheel drive provides fantastic traction and ensures that grunt doesn't just tear the tyres off those rims when you sneeze on the throttle.

And while the air-suspension is soft and comfortable, adaptive dampers adjust for when the road goes twisty, providing impressive handling for a heavy and long car.

Really, though, the B7 is built for long, endless stretches of roads, and the acceleration beyond 100km/h is almost as startling as that from 0-100km/h, as it wants to push straight past 200km/h towards that 330km/h top speed.

Which, unless you know a good lawyer or happen to be one, will send you straight to jail. Yes, the B7 is probably too much car for Australian roads. Only on a German autobahn would a B7 be fully at home.

I felt like I was given a Melbourne Cup-winning racehorse for a week but could only ride it in my suburban backyard.

The Alpina B7 comes with all of the BMW 750Li's safety equipment – this includes AEB, lane-keeping assistance and lane-departure warning, blind-spot warning, active cruise control, night vision with object recognition, auto parking and surround view camera.

Along with the suite of airbags, there's traction and stability control and ABS, as you'd expect.

The 750Li and B7 have not been given an ANCAP score.

The WRX tS Spec B is covered by Subaru’s five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, which while the standard for the mainstream segment, is behind the seven-plus terms we're now seeing from a lot of Chinese and Japanese car brands.

Servicing is recommended every 15,000km/12 months and can be expensive compared to other brands, with the five years of capped price servicing coming to $2692.

The B7 is covered by BMW's three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty. Servicing is recommended every 12 months or 15,000km. The B7 is covered by BMW special vehicles servicing plan, which means services are cost-free for the first three years of the car's life.