Here is an interesting car, and a damn fine looking one at that! It’s a gray market import that has been converted as an Alpina B9 tribute. It’s on eBay right now for $27k buy-it-now. Check out these beautiful pictures used in the listing:
Excerpt from the eBay listing for this car:
This is a 1982 BMW E28 528i (euro car) built as a tribute to an Alpina B9 3.5. It is not a real Alpina. It is not a clone, as it has not been built to exact standards, using exact parts and processes as Alpina did when they built the real B9 3.5 cars. This car was built using some Alpina parts, some modern parts and some just plain reliable parts…along with a lot of blood, sweat and…money. The car is not perfect. It has imperfections. They will be listed in this essay. This car was in Bimmer Magazine # 56
A gentlemen in Newport Beach by the name of Ron Perry built 95% of this car. He pretty much did all the visual Alpina Tribute stuff that you see today. Ron worked endlessly on the paint finish, installing the Alpina stripe kit, Alpina replica front spoiler and real Alpina rear spoiler. Ron had fabric made to closely match the Alpina pattern and then had the interior recovered in it. Ron installed the Alpina instrument cluster, Alpina leather steering wheel, Alpina wood shift knob and Alpina dead pedal.
Ron then moved to the engine bay. The engine is a euro M30B34 bored and stroked to 3.7L using Venolia pistons. It has been updated to later Motronic running a 059 ECU. I had a custom chip burned to take into account the 3.7L, 284 cam, 19lbs injectors and big headers. The chip never really worked well and I went back to a stock 059 chip. The engine has been able to achieve the best drivability tune with the stock chip, thus no further work was done on another chip. The 3.7L chip is included with the sale.
The modifications aren’t necessarily all Alpina sourced, but are where they need to be to convince most people. And the modifications probably add up to over the $27k asking when you consider the specialty parts and pricey performance upgrades, like the rebuilt 3.7 stroker motor with upgraded cam, engine management, headers, and injectors. Or the authentic cosmetic Alpina add-on’s all over the car. This car is amazing!
However, I have some issues that I need to note. First is that the actual mileage of the car is unknown. On top of the fact that it is a recreation car and not an original, knowing if the car was a 30k, 150k, or 400k+ mile car would make it easier to put a price on. And finally, I personally think part of what makes vintage Alpina values hover in the 20’s and 30’s these days is that they are sought after by extreme enthusiasts that want the real thing. Like 2002tii buyers who will pay huge premiums over regular 02’s. And while this car is clearly an amazing piece of work with some very expensive additions, and wonderful execution, it is someone’s project car at the end of the day. $27k is probably what it is worth to the seller. Of course it’s always tough to put a price on a car like this. But in this case I think high teens is a more likely to fetch a buyer. But on the other hand, if I had this car and this much work invested, I wouldn’t be in a rush to sell it.
Update 9.15.08 – It’s still on eBay from the same seller, but the buy-it-now has fallen to $15k. This is sounding much more realistic. Good luck to the seller!
Here’s a link to a VWVortex thread made by the photographer that has lots more pictures with links to hi-res.
dc
Update: This post is out of date and the item listed is probably not available any more. Why not take a look at these BMW Alpina’s and parts that are currently for sale!
[AffomaticEbay]BMW Alpina[/AffomaticEbay]
