What is faster: 2015 Chevy Corvette Stingray Convertible or a 2015 BMW Alpina B6 Gran Coupe? Some of you may be asking – what is an Alpina B6 Gran Coupe? It’s basically a tuned all wheel drive BMW M6 four-door coupe. In other words, the Alpina B6 is the fastest accelerating production BMW currently on sale.
Can the small and athletic (by comparison) 2015 Chevy Corvette Stingray Convertible take the challenge to the heavy autobahn stormer? This is what TFLcar wanted to find out.
Lets look at the numbers first. The Alpina B6 Gran Coupe has a tweaked 4.4L twin-turbo V8 good for 540 horsepower and 540 lb-ft of torque. This is 20 horses less and 38 lb-ft of torque more than the BMW M6 motor. More torque never hurt anybody. The B6 xDrive weighs in at 4,475 lbs according to Alpina website.
The 2015 Corvette Convertible uses a naturally aspirated 6.2L V8 with 455 horsepower and 460 lb-ft of torque. It weighs in at 3,362 pounds. The Vette carries 7.39 pounds per horsepower, and the B6 has the worse 8.29 pounds per horsepower ratio.
The elephant in the room is that the IMI Motorsports race track elevation of over a mile above sea level. It means that the Corvette’s naturally aspirated motor loses about 17% of power due to lack of oxygen. So, the 6.2L is making around 378 horsepower up here. It’s unknown how much power the Alpina is losing, if any. Turbocharged motors usually make up for most of the elevation induced power loss.
Check out this fun video for the results.
Andre Smirnov is a life-long automotive enthusiast, writer, reporter, and software engineer. He has been writing and reporting at TFL since 2011.