my Alpina C1 2.3 restoration

[anastasio]

Greetings fellow members, well I bought a bmw e21, that was supposedly an Alpina in Arizona united states, the seller told me he would sell it to me only if I was not to part it and sell it for parts .

I have the original invoice from Germany, from a BMW dealer, not the alpina factory , but it states that its an Alpina C1 2.3. and all the options that went along with the car .

I tried to find out somethiong more about the car, but was unlucky, and I saw that many people claim to have Alpina cars, and I thought this could be the case, I called the US Alpina distributor, and gave them my chasis number, and they told me it was not an alpina car....it was truly sad.....so I left the car where I bought it for almost a year. I tried looking online to many VIN decoders , and never got anything more than the model of the car, with absolutelly NO options, I have other BMW´s and the VIN decoder tells so many things, but not on this case

I wrote to Alpina in Germany, and they said they DO NOT have records for Alpina C1 2.3, as they were not a car manufacturer still, but they did ask me to look for my engine number....so I had the mechanic who sold me the car ( where I left it for over a year ....sorry ) check the engine number .

he gave me the number , and it says +C1+2.3 XXXX ( engine number ), followed by 8 numbers . I sent an e-mail to Alpina with that information, and they answered, that is in fact an Alpina motor, and the other eight numbers should be the chassis number to be correct ....as soon as I got this e-mail, I looked at the photos of when I bought the car ( pretty disassembled ) , and saw, that indeed those eight numbers are my chassis number.....so EUREKA !!!!.

from there on , my interest in the car grew, and I had it towed from Arizona , to Laredo TX, and imported to Mexico city, where I have started a restoration

[uwbuurman]

Ah, great!! So, now I want to read more on this story and see some pictures!! (Can't wait a whole year wahaha)

[Jeroen]

Great news buddy! Definitely begging for some photos now, can you please make a topic in the car on the owner's gallery (see here on how to post photos).

With the B6 Alpina kept records as these cars almost all got the full monty, but a lot of C1's were only partial conversions and taken less seriously. However, with the confirmed C1 engine you got something most people that claim to have a C1, don't!

As these conversions were mostly done by Alpina dealerships, are they able to indicate who did the conversion or where they shipped the engine? It would really be something if this was one of the few Buchloe built C1's!

Pics please!

[anastasio]

https://flic.kr/p/2ebibcg

[anastasio]

I dont know how to post photos.....sorry

[anastasio]

https://flic.kr/p/24XAUNx

[uwbuurman]

Very cool to see it brought back to euro spec style, with the chrome bumpers and all.

how to post foto's

[anastasio]

It was actually ordered from new with US bumpers as specified in the original invoice, but it just did not look right , so I got euro bumpers , also a new dashboard, all the rubbers for door seals, window, windshield etc, got all new urethane bushings, new brakes a new supersprint stainless steel exhaust from the headers down......and many more new parts

[Jeroen]

The only way to treat an original Alpina!

[anastasio]

right now its painted, and ready for assembly, lets see how long that takes

[anastasio]

here is a look at the interior as I got it


https://www.flickr.com/photos/157433672 ... 633386281/

[anastasio]

another one

schill seats , wit broken alpina logos on the seats

https://www.flickr.com/photos/157433672 ... otostream/

[anastasio]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/157433672 ... 717836405/

[anastasio]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/157433672 ... 717832845/

[anastasio]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/157433672 ... 909148324/