So after tons of requests the Story of Alpina is finally here.
Alpina is a very unique tuner, especially compared to other German tuner's.
Differently from AMG and Brabus or G power which would built crazy cars with crazy power,
Alpina has always been more simple, with combining beauty, luxury and power in one perfect package.
Plus their racing history, is very successful, not only compared to other tuner but also
compared to car manufactures.
So guys, with any further ado, welcome back to another video and here is the story of
Alpina.
Before I start I wanted to say that I'm going to make 3 videos about Alpina, the first
video would be their story, the second video about all their cars and the final video would
for their racing history.
I'm doing this thing because otherwise the video would become very complicated.
So back to the video now.
Alpina the brand originally was formed by Dr. Rudolf Bovensiepen in 1949.
But They made office machines and mostly typewriters, instant of powerful luxurious car's.
And they were quite successful.
But everything would change in the early 60s, when they tried some new business ventures,
but thing didn't go as they planned and the Alpina brand was bought out in 1 January 1965.
This was the story of the Alpina name.
The story of Alpina the BMW tuner begins in 1 September 1936 in the town of Chemnitz,
when Burkard Bovensiepen was born.
After finishing the school in Oberstdorf, he decided to study for engineering and economic
in Munich.
In 1957 Burkard started a small business by becoming a small shareholder on a company
which exported VW Beetles to the USA.
But everything changed probably in the early 60s.
Burkard had bought a Fiat 1500, but he wasn't happy with the performance.
So he brought the car to a friend for a tune-up.
He and his friend added a Weber carburetor, a more aggressive crankshaft and opened up
the muffler.
So they managed to gain 8hp, and the Fiat ended up with 75hp.
But he decided to give up with Fiat's after his 1500 broke its crankshaft in Italy.
So because of this he decided to open his tuning shop and decide to work with BMW which
he had always been interested on, but also because BMW had just presented the BMW 1500.
The BMW 1500 was perfect for his new business since it offered perfect handling and performance
thanks to its 1499cc engine with 78hp, which was perfect for this car.
Burkard started experimenting with the car, he replaced the Solex carburetors, with a
pair of Weber's and modified the manifolding of his own design.
These changes increased the power to 88hp, which brought an instant transformation to
the car performance.
The conversion worked perfectly.
So Burkard started to sell these conversions as kits.
After getting permission from BMW and well-received article on German car magazine Auto, Motor
Und Sport in October 1963, Burkard started getting his first sales.
One of the things that really helped him out was his deal with BMW when his conversions
would be covered by the standard factory warranties.
Customer's started demanding additional performance and handling upgrades.
So, Bovensiepen started developing a new suspension system to improve the handling of the 1500
also he developed modified cylinder heads and started selling different aftermarket
parts, like steering wheels and seats.
By the mid 60s the demand for Burkard products was at such that Burkard couldn't cope on
his own.
And so, in 1 January 1965 he established Alpina Burkard Bovensiepe.
Since he liked the Alpina name he decided to pay a 3% license fee to the new owner of
the typewriter company.
And now he employed 8 workers.
By the mid 60s BMW models had started sharing parts with each other, so Burkard started
adapting his 1500 kits for the newly released 2000.
Also, around this time he was building fully converted cars to customer's specs, since
until then he was selling only kits which you could install by yourself.
In 1967 Alpina introduced her iconic logo, a heraldic type emblem with a crankshaft on
the blue field and a pair of intake trumpets on the red field.
In 1968 Alpina started working with the new BMW straight-6 engine for the e3 and e9.
By the late 60s the variety of the Alpina packages was at such that they had to distinguish
one model from another so they started using their known Alphanumeric codes for the names.
This system was very simple.
The letter A was used for the 4-cylinder M10 engine and the letter B for the 6-cylinder
M30 engine.
They also started using the letter C for the M20 straight-6 engine.
The first Alpina version of the engine would take the number 1, the second the number 2
and so on.
The letter S was used when the engine was developed into a second stage.
This system continued until 1978, when Alpina started using the engine capacity to distinguish
one model from another.
But this time they stopped using the letter A, and after many clients complaints they
also stopped using the letter C. So the C2 2.7 Was renamed B3 2.7.
The system changed again during the 90s.
But his time they introduced a very wired system.
For example.
B3 was the 6-cylinder 3-series B8 was the V8 3-series
B10 was the petrol 5-series Now they had also tuned diesel engines so
they started using the letter D and D10 was the diesel 5-series
And B12 was the V12 powered cars.
Also since BMW had presented the new Z series, Alpina started using the Roadster name for
the new convertibles.
In 2005 Alpina changed the system again, and this time they used a very simple one.
After the letter B would come the series model, for example the B3 was the 3-series and the
B7 was the 7-series and for the only SUV that they have built the X3 they use the DX3 name.
Back to the story now.
1968 was also very important for Alpina because was the year when they created their racing
team to compete in the European Touring Car Championship.
Like I said I'm going to make a whole video about their racing history but I'm going to
talk briefly on this video.
From 1968 to 1977 Alpina raced with a number of different car's 1600Ti different 2002s
and a CSL.
Their cars were very successful.
In 1970, they won the European Touring Championship, German hill climb different rally and track
championships and the 24h of SPA.
BMW, impressed by the work of Alpina, put them in charge of their racing division.
And they continued wining.
They won the 71, 73 European Championship with a CSL and the 77 Championship with a
3.5 CSL.
Alpina withdrew from the racing competitions in 1977 and returned in the late 80s, when
they raced for one year with an e30.
They left the racing world again and returned only after 20 years in 2009 with e63.
By 1969 Alpina was growing rapidly and they were making more than 4DM million.
Because of the high demand, Alpina moved from the old typewriter factory to the small Bavarian
village of Buchloe.
Also, Burkard managed to buy the rights to use the Alpina name from the typewriter factory.
The 70s would bring major changes for Alpina.
In 1970 Alpina started selling parts and kits in UK.
Because of the legislation and the costs, Alpina couldn't built RHD cars in Buchloe,
so they started working with different dealers to do the work for them.
This system continued until 1993 when Alpina had the capacity to built RHD cars back in
Germany.
The racing victories helped them a lot during the early 70s, with boosting the brand reputation.
By 1975 Alpina had started selling kits and parts in Switzerland and had established its
own network of dealerships, through BMW outlets.
In 1976, they started selling kits in US.
The history of Alpina in US is very interesting.
The first Alpina tuned BMW in America was a 1602, a customer had bought the car in America
and had send the car back in Germany to Alpina to tune the car for him.
But officially Alpina's, were available in America only by 1976.
An American company called Hardy and Beck started importing Alpina parts and kits for
the e21 320i.
One year later two more companies also started selling Alpina parts, Dietel Enterprise and
Miller and Norbuen.
The biggest problem that Alpina faced in America were all the regulations that the American
market had.
Since the Alpina parts were built for the Euro spec BMW, the American Alpinas would
perform purely.
Also, the bodykits would not fit to the American BMWs.
So importers would only use Alpina suspension.
This let to feuds between Alpina and the importers, since they would use also different parts
beside the Alpina ones but they mark the cars as Alpina's with Alpina striping and brading.
Alpina stopped working with Hardy and Beck in 1979 and Dietel Enterprise faded away in
the mid 80s.
Miller and Norburn continued to sell Alpina parts for some times but they also went bankrupt
in the late 80s.
By the 90s Alpinas have been only available in America only in some BMW dealerships.
So this is the number one reason why you don't see many Alpina's in America.
Back to 1977 now, when Alpina had grown even more and now had around 80 employs.
In 1978 Burkard took a very important decision, when he decided to stop selling aftermarket
kits and parts and instead he decided to be focused only on building completely tuned
cars.
These changes were made because most of the Alpina sales were kits sale.
For example in 1977 Alpina sold around 300 cars, but in the same time they sold 700 kits.
And the problem with this was that some of these kits were put together by the buyers
them self, with zero quality control and in all sort of ways.
But these cars still carried the Alpina badge and these badly built cars could damage the
reputation of Alpina.
So everything was done to save the name of the brand.
Also, the same year Bovenspien agreed with BMW to get cars directly from the production
line.
And in 1979 Alpina started selling cars in Japan which would become one of their biggest
markets.
The 80s would be very important for Alpina, since a lot of changes happened and some of
their best cars came in the 80s.
Due to the oil crisis of the 70s, Alpina worked on building more fuel efficient cars without
compromising the performance.
In 1981 an Alpina tuned 318i won its class economy run race organized by Auto, Motor
Und Sport.
This was one of the main things that set them apart from the other tuners of the decade.
In the early 80s Bovensiepen with the help of BMW, started working to get recognized
as an independent car manufacture.
This was a very important step for Alpina, because this way they would lose the kit builder
reputation.
But being a car manufacture had its own responsibilities, because now they had to meet the emission
regulation.
So by 1983 Alpina is recognized as a car manufacture by the German Federal Motor Transport Authority.
Since then Alpina's have had their own VIN number.
The earlier examples are the coolest ones since they would just struck out the BMW VIN
number and would put their own.
Like I mentioned before he dint had the capacity to built RHD cars, so they struck a deal with
a UK based BMW dealer called Sytner to build the cars for them.
This lead to some exclusive UK only models.
This deal continued until 1993 when everything returned in Buchloe.
By the mid 80s the west German Government had started enforcing the use of catalytic
converters.
Originally the law was planned to get enforced by January 1986, but after the protest of
the German motor industry the deadline was moved to 1 January 1988 for the cars with
a displacement of larger than 2 liters and yo 1 January 1989 for the cars with smaller
displacement.
This law was a big problem for Alpina, since the catalytic back then were notorious for
restricting the power and the torque outputs of the engines.
So they started working with EMITEC to solve the problem.
EMITEC catalytic depended on metal substrates, which made them more expensive, but in the
same time made them more efficient compared to the ceramic-based catalytic.
Alpina finally presented their first catalytic car in 1985 and all their catalytic cars were
known as KAT.
Alpina worked hard to make the KATs more popular with making them more powerful than their
non catalytic versions.
By the late 80s all the Alpina's were built with catalytic converters.
Another way that Alpina promoted their catalytic technology was by entering an e30 in Group
A, and soon, after them all the other teams started using catalytic converters.
For their 25 birthday, in 1989 Alpina introduced probably their most known car the B10-biTurbo.
Like I said I'm not going to talk about the specs on this video.
The bi-turbo was the fastest Alpina for a number of years and also one of the fastest
sedans in the world.
The biggest for Alpina came in the 90s and the number reason for this was the Motorsport.
The BMW performance division was competing against Alpina now, so they had to make even
more special cars.
So they started making better and more refined cars and offering a better overall package.
The interior started getting better and becoming more luxurious with more leather and wood.
Until then Alpina had used most of the time stock BMW gearboxes, or some time they would
use Getrag gearboxes.
But since in the early 90s the electronic gearshifters were popular in F1, Apina decided
to try and developed a similar system for their cars.
Introduced in 1992, the system simply provided the 6 speed manual BMW gearbox with an automatic
electronic clutch.
But this system was short-lived, since more manufactures including BMW had started using
automatic transmissions.
So one year later in 1993 Alpina introduced Switch-tronic which offered fingertip manual
control together with the option of the standard of the automatic gearbox.
By the late 90s Alpina was trying new technologies to make their cars more fuel efficient.
In 1995 was introduced the Super-KAT.
This new catalytic converter was electrically heated and was packed on the top of the range
B12 5.7 E KAT.
Since BMW had developed new much more powerful and more fuel efficient diesel engines, Alpina,
started working to make them even better.
So in 1999 they introduced the D10 bi-turbo based on the e34 5-series.
In 2000, they started focusing on using superchargers in order to gain more power.
So in 2003 came the first supercharged Alpina, the B7 E65 and two years later came the B5s
based on the e60 when they replaced the 5l V10 with a 4.4l supercharged.
In 2009, 20 years later after their last race, they returned to the racing world with the
B6 GT3.
But with no success.
2 years later they managed to went the German Gt championship with a B6 GT3 EVO.
In 2015 Alpina celebrated her 50th anniversary with the B5 and B6 EDITION 50.
Today Alpina is stronger than ever.
In 2014, they managed to sell more than 1700 cars.
A record for the company and also have managed to reach the American market with more than
400 cars in a year.
Also, they partnership with BMW is at is best.
And the car to prove this is the X5 4.6iS, when BMW borrowed the Alpina's 4.6 V8 engine
from the e39 B10 V8.
Also, Andy Bovensiepen son of Burkard worked for BMW in the early 2000, until 2002 when
he returned to Buchloe.
Alpina's now gets early access to new BMW models.
So guy thank you for watching, hope you liked the video and see you next time.
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