7 years in the making [#2.1] The Alpina Story

Enter ALPINA

This is a small spin-off of my blog "7 years in the making | rebuilding and restoring a 30year old BMW - twice" which you can find here:

https://steemit.com/cars/@peterschroeter/7-years-in-the-making-1-rebuilding-and-restoring-a-30-year-old-bmw-twice

(Picture courtesy of Alpina Burkhard Bovensiepen GmbH)

Some of you might know this small privateer company located deep in the Bavarian Alps. Without going into too much detail in the late 60s a young Burkhard Bovensiepen decided that the BMW 1500 (pre-predecessor of the first 3 series BMW the E21) was a nice car but just lacked some serious punch so he decided to beef it up. Gave it some Webber carbs, hotter camshaft, more displacement, etc.

Pretty soon he found himself modding BMWs so severely in terms of engine, suspension, interior, styling and so on that he decided to register himself and the company as an official manufacturer which he did. The cooperation with BMW was always there and they started to work out deals that Alpina would designate certain VINs to receive some special treatment at the BMW assembly lines and he shipped his engines (which were often complete redesigns bar the engine block) to the factory where they were installed by BMW. Later on the car would go to Alpina and be stripped again to get customized interiors, aerodynamic components and pretty much anything else that takes too much time and has to be done by hand therefore not workable at an assembly line.

Long story short this marquee of exclusive auto manufacturing builds some of the most sophisticated, fastest and well refined so called 'Bahn Stomers' that you can imagine. You get the performance while retaining complete daily usability. You can fly from Munich to Berlin in 90 minutes and look all business upon arrival. It's about under statement never mind the fact that they build the fastest sedan (B10 3.5 Bi-Turbo) in the world in 1989 which could out accelerate a Ferrari Testarossa...up to 200 mph!

If you care to see how amazing this company is check out this interview with the CEO...at 200mph:

Yeah, he's a cool customer. Also drops some hilarious historical facts about Nikki Lauda there but I digress.

Anyway, they also built this in the late 80s:

(Pictures courtesy of Aleksey at https://en.wheelsage.org)

This is an Alpina B3 2.7. The basecar is a BMW 325i which then receives the treatment above including an Alpina engine with 2.7L displacement, 204bhp and 265NM of torque. The base engine is a M20B25 which is fitted with a different crankshaft, special pistons and rods to increase the size to 2.7L and some other goodies around the valves, intake, exhaust and engine management to arrive at the final performance figures.

This engine (internal code C2/2) represents the original execution of an M20 stroker motor and has served as the reference design for many conversions and builds that followed including displacement of up to 3.0L and more in an M20. The engine was also sold separately to be put in regular BMW E30s.

Thanks for reading and I hope I can help spread the word about this small, owner operated, independent company that's been rocking the race- and motorways of the world for over 40 years without anyone noticing.

(Picture courtesy of Alpina Burkhard Bovensiepen GmbH)