Independent BMW customizer Alpina has published the first official sketch of its upcoming B5 Bi-Turbo ahead of the sports saloon world premiere at next month's 'Goodwood Festival of Speed' event in the UK.
As the car's name suggests, the B5 Bi-Turbo is based on the new 2011 BMW 5-Series sedan. So far, Alpina is keeping a tight lid on details about the car, but if the company's previous and current models are anything to go by, then the B5 Bi-Turbo could be all the M5 you'll ever want.
A gallery of scanned photos from a leaked brochure gives us our first glimpse of the M Sport Package for the 2011 BMW 5-Series, which is expected to be available for order this fall. Even though the pictures show an M Sports-dressed Touring model [F11], understandably, the same parts will be offered on the sedan version [F10] of the new 5-Series.
The color-coded aero kit includes a newly designed, chunkier front bumper with larger air ducts, side skirts and a revamped rear bumper with an integrated diffuser finished in a dark shade and chrome tail pipes.
Only a month after it first went on sale in Europe and a week in the U.S., BMW's brand-new 5-Series sedan, codenamed F10, is sold out in all-markets with customers having to wait up three to four months for deliveries, according to company officials.
"The 5-Series is at the core of the BMW brand and we knew it was going to be a very strong vehicle for us," said Ian Robertson, BMW's sales boss, today in an interview at an industry conference in Bilbao, Spain. "In the U.S., where it's doing very well, it could come to between 15 percent and 17 percent of our business as we ramp up," Robertson added.
What do you do to improve the image of a vehicle that looks like the BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo? Well, the painful answer to that question would be to head back to the drawing board. However, given that this is not an option for a model launched less than two years ago, BMW thought of spicing it up with the always welcome M Sports package. 
Spied here in Germany, the prototype model of the 5-Series GT with the M Sports treatment gains new, lower front and rear bumpers, deeper side skirts and larger alloy wheels in a different design. As is the case with all M Sports Packages, we can expect minor tweaks in the interior with a three-spoke steering wheel, sports seats, aluminum pedals and door sills, plus bespoke upholstery and headlining.
