Is Brabus the MB equivalent to Alpina for BMW?

[Stanley Rockefeller]

After spending some time in SoCal, these cars are very interesting to me. From their site it seems like they offer far mroe than what BMW has to offer from Alpina

What are you opinions?

[kway]

AMG used to be the Alpina of MB. Now that MB owns AMG, they're more like BMW's ///M division. I wouldn't say Brabus is akin to Alpina, more like Schnitzer or Hartge.

[RainierHooker]

They are definatly more like Hartge in the "let's stuff every last horsepower that we can into this chassis" respect.
I would say Alpina takes a little too much thought in the well-rounded luxury car realm to compare to Brabus.

[5ickride]

Not sure but is Brabus sold in MB dealerships?, if not, then no. Alpina is sold thru BMW and I would say they are not in the same category. Brabus to me is more like a AC Schnitzer/Hartge.

On another note, Dinan also offers performance upgrades for BMW that doesnt void warranty. Im not sure if MB has someone equivalent.

[briansjacobs]

Brabus,Hartge,Alpina and Ruf are all considered their own manufactures in europe and not titled as a BMW/MB or Porsche. AC S is a tuner.

Here in the USA you can buy tuner parts from the resellers here but not buy a real car with a factory VIN number. For example a friend of mine has a Ruf 930 that was done at the Ruf factory but not on a Ruf VIN, the car is identical in every way as a real Ruf vin car but is worth half as much because of the VIN.

hope that helps