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BMW reveals updated 2016 Alpina B6 xDrive Gran Coupe

Do you dig the BMW M6 Gran Coupe, but really wanted one with all-wheel drive? We can hardly blame you, considering how well it held up against the Nissan GT-R and Bentley Continental GT in the Australian Outback on a recent episode of Top Gear, despite the disadvantage on driven-wheel count. But that, you see, is where Alpina comes in. The "other M division" offers the a twin-turbo 6 Series Gran Coupe with four-wheel traction – even here in the US – and it's just been upgraded. The 2016 BMW Alpina B6 xDrive Gran Coupe packs a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 engine, just like the M6. But whereas the previous B6 packed less power than its factory counterpart, the new one surpasses it. Thanks to a boost by 60 horsepower and 50 pound-feet of torque, the B6 now cranks out 600 hp and 590 lb-ft – which rather impressively bests the M6 by 40 hp and 90 lb-ft. Plus it's driven to all four wheels. The manufacturer says that's good for a tenth of a second off the 0-60 time, now quoted at 3.6 seconds, with a top speed pegged at 200 miles per hour, making this the fastest Alpina ever offered. The 2016 B6 also benefits from new headlamps, upgraded brakes and reshaped aerodynamic elements, but it's mostly the power boost that makes this the quickest Alpina off the line in the company's history. Related Video: THE NEW BMW ALPINA B6 XDRIVE GRAN COUPE Enhancements for 2016 model year deliver more power and refinement than ever. Woodcliff Lake, N.J. –February 11, 2015... The new 2016 model year BMW ALPINA B6 xDrive Gran Coupe gains subtle BMW enhancements and benefits in particular from the results of continuous development by ALPINA. The four-door Gran Coupe, already widely recognized for aesthetic beauty and impressive driving performance, raises the benchmark with exciting new details. The new BMW ALPINA B6 xDrive Gran Coupe will become available to order starting in March 2015, with US deliveries slated to begin at BMW Centers in June. Pricing will be announced closer to the on-sale date. The BMW ALPINA B6 xDrive Gran Coupe is available as a special-order vehicle with capacity-limited production underscoring its exclusivity. The B6's body is manufactured in the BMW 6 Series factory (Plant Dingolfing) and hand-finished with the remaining ALPINA components at the ALPINA factory in Buchloe, Germany. The hand-finishing sequence at ALPINA increases the production lead-time by approximately two weeks.

Why this could be the perfect time for Apple to make a car play

While the automotive and technology worlds have been pouring billions into autonomous vehicles (AVs) and preparing to bring them to market soon as shared robo-taxis, Apple has mostly sat on the sidelines. Of course, Apple is the last company to ever make its intentions known, and the super-secret tech cult giant hasn't been totally out of the AV game based on the clues that have slipped out of its Cupertino, Calif., citadel over the past few years. Related: Apple self-driving cars are real — one was just in an accident News first broke in 2015 that it had assembled an automotive development team, in part by poaching high-profile talent from car companies, to work on a top-secret self-driving vehicle project code-named Titan. (Thank you very much, Nissan.) Apple also subsequently broke cover by making inquiries into using a Northern California AV testing facility and receiving a permit to test AVs on public roads in California. But then as the AV race started to heat up in the last few years, Apple reportedly began scaling back its car activities by downsizing team Titan. More recently, Apple's car project has shown signs of life with the hiring a high-level engineer away from Waymo and luring one Tesla's top engineers and a former employee back to Apple. It also inked a deal with Volkswagen to provide a technology platform and software to convert the automaker's new T6 Transporter vans into autonomous shuttles for employees at tech company's new campus. That is a far cry from giving rides to Wal-Mart shoppers, like Waymo is doing as part of its AV testing in Phoenix. But this could be the perfect time for Apple to enter the AV market now that ride-sharing is reaching critical mass and automakers and others are planning to deploy fleets of robo-taxis. Apple could easily establish a niche as a high-end ride-sharing service – and charge a premium – given its cult-like brand loyalty and design savvy. The growth of car subscription models could also play in Apple's favor since is already has many people hooked on paying for phones in monthly installments – and eager to upgrade when a new and better model becomes available. To achieve this, some believe Apple will fulfill co-founder and CEO Steve Job's dream of building a car. And as the world's first and only $1 trillion company it's sitting on a mountain of cash that certainly gives it the means. But other tech darlings like Tesla and Google have discovered how difficult it can be to build cars at scale.

Weekly Recap: Mercedes continues the pseudo-coupe craze with AMG-tuned CUV

But as BMW's X6 has demonstrated, sport sells in in the crossover segment, and Mercedes is giving the people what they want. BMW proved there is a market for crossover utility vehicles designed to look like coupes – as much as a vehicle with four doors and noticeable ground clearance can look like a coupe, anyway. Now comes the reply from Mercedes-Benz: the GLE Coupe. The rakish crossover is a harbinger of things to come from Mercedes, as it begins the company's transition to a new nomenclature and marks the debut of the AMG Sport line. It also continues the recent coupe craze. Designers from many automakers, like Nissan and Volkswagen, have increasingly turned to swoopy, dramatic styling to make utility vehicles and sedans seem more desirable. By revealing the GLE 450 AMG Sport model first, Mercedes is clearly hoping to cast the GLE Coupe as a sportier, lifestyle-oriented alternative in its lineup of beefy crossovers and SUVs. Mercedes used the word "sport," or a variation of it, 53 times in its press release, so uh yeah, it's sporty. It's not an empty promise: Benz means business with the AMG Sport line. This GLE Coupe gets a 3.0-liter biturbo V6 rated at 362 horsepower and 384 pound-feet of torque paired with Mercedes' new nine-speed automatic transmission, and it runs with 4Matic all-wheel drive. Specs on the other GLE Coupe models were not disclosed. But as BMW's X6 has demonstrated, sport sells in in the crossover segment, and Mercedes is giving the people what they want. After all, more than 260,000 people have bought X6s since 2008, and Mercedes wants a piece of that. From certain angles, the GLE Coupe even looks vaguely like an X6. "This is really a vehicle that is all about status," said Dave Sullivan, product analysis manager for research firm AutoPacific. "You can buy a SUV that doesn't have the inherent qualities of a SUV, such as cargo hauling. People will likely be drawn to the looks. Coupes are all the rage." BMW, however, isn't running from the fight, and the updated 2015 X6 is arriving in showrooms this month. It also added a smaller sibling, the X4, to its coupe-crossover stable in July. The GLE Coupe arrives next year, though Mercedes hasn't specified exactly when it will hit showrooms from the factory in Alabama, or specified details on the rest of the non-AMG Sport models. In 2008, it was surprising the X6 was a hit. In 2015, it will be even more surprising if the GLE Coupe isn't.