2020 Alpina B7

Alpina began as a maker of aftermarket performance parts for BMW cars but is now recognized as an actual auto manufacturer by the German government. Its cars are assembled alongside BMW's own cars, and avoid competing head-to-head with the maker's own M-cars by placing more of an emphasis on high-speed touring than wild-eyed redline performance.

At the top of the Alpina lineup is the B7, their riff on BMW's big 7-series luxury sedan. Whereas the peak of the G12 7-series was the M760Li, powered by a 599hp twin-turbo 6.6L V-12, Alpina's version comes with a 4.4L twin-turbo V-8 that sends 600 horsepower to all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Car and Driver tested one of these 4,940-pound beasts and it roared to sixty miles per hour in 3.2 seconds and through the quarter in 11.4 seconds at 123mph. Unlike BMW, Alpina doesn't have any sort of gentleman's agreement with anybody regarding top speeds and claims the B7 has a terminal velocity of 205mph. The number I found eye-popping was the braking distance from seventy, which was only 151 feet, which is pretty amazing for two and a half tons of fun.

Price as tested was $153,195 for an Alpina Green car that looked just like the one in the photos, which were snapped in November of 2025 using a Pentax K7 and an 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens.

2020 Bentley Continental GTC V8

If you're a Boomer or a GenX'er, it's hard to believe that Bentleys have been running around on Volkswagen-designed chassis for two decades now, but here we are. The 2025 Continental marks the fourth generation of Bentley's racy coupe to ride on VW-group underpinnings.

The one in the picture (I believe that color is "Dragon Red") is a third generation Continental GTC V8, the generation that spanned the 2019-2024 model years.

The Continental GTC could be had with either the V-8 or W-12 motors, both of which packed a brace of intercooled turbos. The 4.0L DOHC 32V V-8, shared with numerous Audi, Porsche, and Lamborghini vehicles, was rated at 542 SAE net horsepower as installed in the Bentley coupes. Not bad for a motor whose roots date back to a normally-aspirated 247 bhp 3.6L V-8 used in late-'80s Audi luxury sedans.

The reinforcement required for the folding top adds considerably to the car's already-considerable heft, bringing the curb weight to an eye-watering 4,982 pounds. This being the entry-level droptop Bentley, it was priced at $222k, a nearly twenty thousand dollar savings over the W12.

It was photographed in June of 2022 using a Nikon D7100 and 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II zoom lens.

The times, they have changed...

A few years ago, Car and Driver gathered the top-of-the-line variants of the Mustang, Camaro, and Challenger for a comparison test:

In previous incarnations of this journal, the procedure for writing a headline for a comparison test similar to this one would have been to add up the peak horsepower of all the participants, add an exclamation point or two or three, and be done with the thing. But in these more enlightened times, simply typing "2207-hp Smackdown!" just doesn't cut it.

Two thousand, two hundred, and seven horsepower...net horsepower...divided among three cars.

In the Eighties, when I was furtively reading Car and Driver in the back of Driver's Ed instead of paying attention to Blood on the Asphalt or whatever scare pic was showing at the front of the classroom, 2,207 bhp would have been ten cars, not three. And ten fairly brawny cars at that.

I happen to have C/D's 1985 Road Test Annual right here, so let's see...

• Chevrolet Camaro IROC Z28: 305cid V8, 215bhp (with the 4spd auto, the manual got you 190)
• Ford Mustang GT: 302cid V8, 210bhp
• Dodge Shelby Charger: 135cid I4 turbo: 146bhp (the Challenger nameplate was on hiatus)

Well, there's the Big Three's pony car offerings for 1985...okay, the Charger wasn't a traditional pony car at the time, but rather a sporty fastback coupe built on the floorpan of the Omni hatchback grocery-getter. (This was, incidentally, widely accepted as the fate of everything at the time. The front-engine, RWD eight-cylinder Camaro and Mustang were viewed as retro holdouts, desperately fighting the decline. There were even whispered rumors over the next few years that Ford was going to move the Mustang badge to a more fuel-efficient FWD platform.)

But we only have less than six hundred horsepower accounted for, here. If we're going to have a 2207-hp smackdown, we have to find another 1,600ish horsepower. I suppose we could include some other domestic sporty cars:

• Pontiac Fiero GT: 171cid V6, 140bhp
• Chevrolet Corvette: 350cid V8, 230bhp
• Merkur XR4Ti: 140cid I4 turbo, 170bhp
• Dodge Omni GLH Turbo: 135cid I4 Turbo, 146bhp

Well, that gives us another 686 horsepower, bringing us up to just shy of 1,300. Only nine hundred more horsepower needed for our "2207-hp Smackdown!" I guess we could include imported models to buff out our totals:

• Toyota MR2: 97cid I4, 112bhp
• Isuzu Impulse Turbo: 122cid I4 turbo, 140bhp
• Audi Coupe GT: 136cid I5, 110bhp
• BMW 635CSi: 209cid I6, 182bhp
• Porsche 928S: 303cid V8, 288bhp

Well, there's another eight hundred and thirty-two...so close! We only need another hundred and eighteen horsepower to finish it out:

• Chevrolet Cavalier Z24: 173cid V6, 125bhp

Well, that puts us a little over the top, but the '85 Mirage Turbo (102bhp) or VW GTI (100bhp) would have left us short. And besides, a "2214-hp Smackdown!" is seven horsepower more exciting than a "2207-hp Smackdown!", especially when you get to spread that smackdown over thirteen cars instead of a mere three, right?