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The Bovensiepen family, founders of legendary German BMW tuning house Alpina, have launched their own coachbuilding business with the unveiling of a new 600bhp super-GT at the Villa d'Este Concorso d'Eleganza.

With Alpina now owned by BMW itself, the family is shifting its focus to become "a manufacturer of outstanding automobiles that embody the ambition of fine driving". 

The first post-Alpina project from the outfit – named simply Bovensiepen – is an imposing, BMW M4-based grand tourer called Zagato, in reference to the famous Italian design house responsible for its styling.

Zagato has previously collaborated with Aston Martin, Ferrari, Bentley, Maserati and Alfa Romeo, and its first effort for Bovensiepen is described as "a harmonious composition of individual design" which "features and bears the unmistakable signature of the traditional Milanese design studio".

It is said to take more than 250 hours to build the Zagato, of which production will be "strictly limited" - though no precise figure has been given. Pricing and availability will be given at the end of this year, ahead of deliveries beginning in summer next year. 

Each car can be, Bovensiepen promises, "as unique as its owner", with extensive personalisation options available for the interior and exterior. 

It is extensively differentiated from the BMW on which it is based by a totally bespoke treatment at the front and rear, a reshaped bonnet and side profile, and Zagato's trademark 'double bubble' roof.

The Bovensiepen Zagato features a 3.0-litre straight six engine that produces 603bhp and 516lb ft for a 0-62mph time of just 3.3 seconds, and a top speed in excess of 186mph, Bovensiepen claims.

It has bespoke Bilstein dampers that can be configured in three driving modes – Comforst, Sport and Sport Plus – which Bovensiepen says offers "a range from pronounced comfort to athletic driving dynamics". It also gains a lightweight, twin-exit titanium exhaust system from Akrapovic, which is said to be 40% lighter than the standard system.

BMW will reveal the next steps for the Alpina brand in 2026, it has said, with ex-Polestar designer Max Missoni joining the German firm to lead the styling for all luxury models, including Alpinas.

The Bovensiepen Zagato's unveiling comes just a day after BMW revealed its own 8 Series-based special edition, the £430,000 Speedtop shooting brake, which is due in production next year.

BMW has lifted the covers off the hot new M2 CS, bringing dramatic styling tweaks that include a ducktail rear spoiler and a more aggressive stance.

Technical details of the new sports coupé remain under wraps until Tuesday night, but a series of visual tweaks hint at significant developments under the skin.

The car’s gold-finished wheels appear to better fill the chunky arches than those on the existing M2, for instance, suggesting the CS has a more track-focused suspension set-up.

Meanwhile, the cracked finish on the brake discs suggests they may be made from carbon-ceramic, which better resists fade over repeated, intensive use than more conventional metals.

The CS also gains a new bootlid that is moulded into a ducktail-style rear spoiler, most likely improving stability at high speeds. The rear diffuser appears to have been reworked to boot.

In addition to the more aggressive look, the new variant has been confirmed to receive a 50bhp boost in output to 523bhp, with torque ramped up to a thumping 479lb ft.

No other technical specs have been given, but the M4 CS was 20kg lighter than the M4 Competition, thanks to a titanium exhaust backbox and copious amounts of carbonfibre, and the M2 CS is likely to receive a similar treatment.

Inside, it appears to get the same bucket seats as the regular M2, plus red CS logos in the doorcards.

Notably, the example shown at Villa d'Este features an automatic gearbox, suggesting the M2 CS could follow the CS versions of the M3 and M4 in omitting a manual option.

So, when you saw the 1995 Audi TT concept coupe for the very first time, did you think ‘wow, that’s very Bauhaus’?

Or did you think several other things like, ‘that looks weird, but amazing.’ Or, ‘I want one’. Or perhaps, ‘from the rear, doesn’t the shape of its roof look a little bit like a WW2 Nazi soldier’s helmet?’ a thought you might not utter out loud in these politically correct times, although it was quite hard not to think it. 

It was even harder to avoid thinking – very much - that we wanted Audi to make this car, inadvertent visual referencing or not. Never mind Bauhaus – ‘sitting outside my house’ was how many of us wistfully imagined this car back in 1998, when the finished thing arrived. 

Brave was certainly a word to describe that 1995 Audi TT concept, for there was simply no other car quite like it.

Brave turned out to be appropriate to the TT coupe world in another, less desirable way, this characteristic a requirement if you planned on driving TT at speeds of 110mph or more. If a sudden lane change was needed – quite likely on a German autobahn – the TT could turn alarmingly uncertain, the rear-end breakaway intended to make it entertaining on the limit catching out several drivers, a few fatally.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Audi needed three years to convert the frenzied enthusiasm for the concept into the finished article. 

Impressively, changes between the concept and production model were remarkably few. 

The most obvious was the addition of a pair of small extra side windows let into the TT’s helmet-like roof just aft of the doors, making it easier to see out, obviously, and making the cabin’s capping look a little less like an obsolete item of protective military headgear. 

Buried deep below that striking roofline lay the reason why it was possible for Audi to actually make the TT. That reason was called PQ34, this being the codename for the platform that was the building block of vast numbers of Volkswagen Group vehicles at the turn of the century. 

This extensive hardware set ran to a lot more than the floorpan and bulkhead that we usually understood a platform to mean, and included suspension systems, powertrains, heating and ventilation systems, seat frames and electrical architecture. 

VW boss Ferdinand Piech was the main driver behind this huge component sharing strategy, which not only made relatively low volume models viable, but also allowed the cost-savings to be spent on upgrading the quality of vital models like the Volkswagen Golf, the contemporaneous Mk4 rich with soft-feel structures, classy rubberised finishes and – yes! - damped-action grab handles. 

The TT shared much of its mechanical hardware with this car, and rode on a shortened version of the PQ34 platform. Its transverse engines were shared with many other models, but that didn’t prevent both launch engines from providing plenty of power, the base 1.8 four-cylinder turbo’s 178bhp generous, the 222bhp of the high output version downright exciting. It was substantially more than Audi’s original Quattro put out, packaged into a smaller car and also provided all-wheel drive as standard, as did the lesser version.

And like the Golf Mk4, the TT’s interior pleased deeply with its soft-feel finishes, milled aluminium air vent bezels and a pair of padded aluminium struts linking dashboard to centre console. The radio cover was aluminium too, as were the interior door handles, the pedals, the gearlever surround and more. 

These days this TT interior looks rather spare, but it did much to propel Audi towards the stellar reputation it has today for tasteful, high quality, high precision interiors. For added impact, you could order a so-called baseball leather interior in tan hide, complete with baseball style cross-stitching. It created an interior worthy of a show car, although few TTs have it, sadly.

Almost every one – perhaps all – has the additional duck-tail spoiler added to counter lift and stabilise the TT at speed, owners invited to return their cars to dealers for modification. The fix also included redesigned front wishbones, modified anti-roll bars and stiffened dampers. The changes certainly made the TT safer, but also took some of the edge from its handling, and ride too. 

You can now buy the earliest of these cars for under £5000 in average condition – not bad for a car that still looks amazing. It was never quite the ultimate drive, but the TT was one of the most dramatic cars to emerge at the 20th century’s end, and still looks it now.

This column first appeared as an email to subscribers.

Kia is priming an estate-bodied version of its new Volkswagen Golf rival, the K4 – a petrol-powered equivalent of the electric EV4.

The striking K4 has already launched in global markets such as the US as a liftback and a conventional hatchback, but it has yet to be confirmed for Europe or the UK.

However, prototypes have previously been spotted testing in Europe, a key market for mid-sized hatchbacks.

Although a spokesperson for Kia UK told Autocar that this does not mean the car is poised to go on sale in Europe, the emergence of an estate suggests Kia could be considering wider launch plans, given the continent accounts for the majority of estate sales globally. Meanwhile, the segment is all but extinct in the key markets for the K4 currently, such as the US.

It's possible that the K4 could arrive as a replacement for the Ceed Sportswagon estate and Proceed shooting brake, which are approaching the end of their lifespans. They launched seven years ago and are built in the brand's factory in Slovakia, which will soon pivot to production of the new EV4.

But the market for such cars remains fruiful, and it is unlikely Kia would so easily abandon the segment. The Ceed Sportswagon, Proceed, Ceed hatchback and Xceed crossover combined to take just under 15,000 sales in the UK last year, accounting for 13% of Kia’s total sales here.

The K4 estate is likely to be notably larger than the 4.61m-long Proceed, given that the K4 liftback stretches to 4.71m.

That would probably result in its repositioning as an alternative to the big-selling Skoda Octavia Estate, which measures 4.70m long.

But the business case for the K4’s import into Europe is not completely flawless: the model does not currently offer any electrified powertrains, which would make it harder for Kia to meet CO2 emissions targets set by the EU.

In the US, it is available with either an atmospheric 147bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine or a turbocharged 1.6-litre unit that puts out 190bhp.

Kia has however committed to expanding its range of hybrid powertrains in response to slowing growth in electric car sales globally.

It could be that the K4 arrives in Europe once these powertrains have been introduced; nine models are set to gain them globally within the next three years.