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Sleuthing the dash plaque (the mystery and allure of Alpinas)

The first post on this blog, Sleuthing the Car, discussed how I found a genuine Alpina on Bring-a-Trailer and the harsh comments when the seller didn't do the leg-work to authenticate the car. What it didn’t discuss was my stepping in the debate, where I offered that “part of the mystery/allure of early ALPINA cars” was that you kinda never really knew what you had. Verification was difficult and making a genuine-looking fake was easy; without some great paperwork, you were operating on faith at some level. I concluded my comment with: “If you want more than that for this vintage, ask for your unicorn to go with it!” That comment made me feel more than a bit foolish when a simple email t

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program

The motor is out. The rebuild decisions have been made, the path mapped out (mostly, more on that later). It’s time to focus on the body and interior. While the car languished, waiting for my motivation to remove the motor, I tinkered with the body, interior, engine compartment and truck. For a while, I went back-and-forth on whether to paint the car. The clear coat was peeling off on much of the horizontal surfaces, way beyond patina. It was kinda cool. My wife encouraged me to leave it alone and I was tempted. My prior projects have only been mechanical restorations and I really like a driver-quality car with new mechanics. But the condition is way-worse than driver-quality and I d

Decisions, decisions

So, I have an authentic Alpina engine, complete with the stamped-in numbers on both head and block. That engine probably has a blown head gasket and maybe a cracked head or some cylinder and piston damage. Of course, I won’t know for sure the extent of any damage until I open it up, but all signs point to the head gasket, as the car was running decently, didn’t smoke, and from what I’ve been told didn’t have oil consumption issues. I could have left the motor in situ and fixed the head gasket, if that turned out to be the problem. But there was a slippery slope to go down and you know I couldn’t resist it: I had to pull the engine; after all the engine compartment was a mess, I wanted t

Hands of God

Although the car was authenticated by Alpina, I assumed the worst – that the engine was not an actual Alpina lump. Yeah, the shell was touched by the Hands of God, but the previous owner who piped-up on BaT said an unethical mechanic pilfered many of the precious parts. I feared the motor suffered that fate. When the car was finally in my hands, I looked for the four-digit hand-stamped numbers in the block and head. I found nothing, not knowing where to look. My fear of the worst grew, but I knew I’d be able to really inspect it once I pulled it out of the body, and I’d figure it out from the serial number on the block. Every project – at least every project I’ve done – has a pace, a rhy

What is an Alpina?

If you read my first blog entry, Sleuthing the Car (how I found my Alpina), you likely recall the noise about whether the car was “really” an Alpina. That begs the question: What is an Aplina. Its easy to answer for modern cars. After all, Alpina, now, is a bona fide car manufacturer (with their own Vehicle Identification Numbers and VIN plates) and the cars they build are Alpinas. Case closed. But back before they became a manufacturer in 1983, Alpina was just a BMW tuner, like Dinan is now (and Ruf is for Porsche and AMG was for Mercedes Benz). The parallel to Dinan is striking. Like Dinan, Alpina back in the day, was the premiere vendor and manufacturer of parts to modify your BMW a

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