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ALPINA

ALPINA are a car company based in Bavaria of Germany who make their own cars by modifying BMWs.

ALPINA was founded by Burkard Bovensiepen, who is still the CEO to this present day. It all started in 1965 with the foundation of Burkard Bovensiepen KG at Kaufbeuren in the southern German province of Bavaria. The original company name of ALPINA was actual intended by the owner’s father to make office supplies.

ALPINA typewriters were hugely successful in the 50s; however the original Alpina ceased to exist at the end of the 1960's in their attempt to move into the textile industry which failed miserably. Buckard established a business in tuning BMWs, using money he had obtained from good investments in the stock market.

By 1967 there were six determined employees the company working on carburettors and now revising cylinder heads and other performance aspects of stock BMWs. By 1970, with seventy employees and with high demand for ALPINA products, the original facility was too small and changed locations from Kaufbeuren to Buchloe in order to increase the efficiency of production.

In the following years, ALPINA’s success grew enormously with demand on the increase and order forms longer than the company could manage. More and more staff was being hired, along with more and more profits. The highlight was in 1970, when ALPINA-developed cars won the European Touring Car Championship and other popular racing events including the ‘hill climb’.

1973 was the start of the oil crisis and many tuners who were close competitors fell victim to it. At this time Burkard’s foresight was to put emphasis on fuel consumption. ALPINA cars of the time used up no more petrol than the same series of factory BMW cars. In fact the ALPINA B2 3.0S was even lower in consumption than the factory BMW series! Such that through the oil crisis there remained a loyal following to ALPINA, making ALPINA the largest tuning business in 1973 with 85 employees and now was in front as the largest tuning company in Europe, ahead of Abarth of Italy. By sheer determination and great engineering, they had survived the oil crisis and had lost rival competitors.

The Current Line-Up of ALPINA cars are as follows:

ALPINA D3 Bi-Turbo Coupe based on the BMW E92 with 123d engine - 214 hp ALPINA B3 Bi-Turbo Sedan / Coupe and Cabrio: based on the BMW E90 335i ALPINA B5s Sedan/Touring: based on the BMW E60 5 Series - featuring a 4.4 L V8 supercharged 530 PS/725 NM ALPINA B6s Coupé/Cabriolet: based on the BMW 6 SERIES- featuring a 4.4 L V8 supercharged 530 PS/725 NM ALPINA B7 Sedan: based on the BMW E65 7-Series - featuring a 4.4-litre V8 supercharged 500 PS/700 NM