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I have a business plan to suggest to the audience; go to Japan, find all of the low mileage AMGs, Rufs and Alpinas that businessmen snapped up in the late 80s and early 90s, buy them and a large number of containers, and bring them over here to eager fans who snap up anything late 80s-spectacular quicker than a cocaine line at a Charlie Sheen party. What’s that? Someone’s already thought of it? We’ve seen a few repeat sellers pop up with surprisingly mint, lower mile examples of some rare German metal – all of which spent time in the land of the rising sun. Again today, it’s another Japanese-import Alpina – this time, an E34 based B10 3.5/1 model:
The 1989 E32 Alpina B11 3.5/1 from January is back! After failing to sell in a reserve auction, the seller has moved to a no reserve format and with about two days to go, this rare 7 has crested $10,000. Last time around I guessed that the car would struggle to break past $12,000 – around where I thought the reserve was set. Where do you think it will end up?
The below post originally appeared on our site January 27, 2015:
I’ve recently had the pleasure of writing up a few very cool Alpinas thanks to a new seller who seems to be flooding the market. Today, unlike the Japanese seller on eBay, there are two B10s that are already located in the Americas – Canada, to be specific, where it’s a bit easier to get these European market cars imported. So here we have two iterations of Alpina’s vision of the 5-series; in the E34, it’s a 1991 3.5/1 that was very similar in many regards to the B11 3.5/1 I featured Tuesday. On the newer end of the spectrum is the 1998 B10 V8; a huge jump in power to accompany the newer chassis. Which is your flavor? Let’s break down what you’d get with each:
Another week, another Alpina treat from our favorite new tuner seller from Japan. This time, unlike the mostly 5-series based models that have popped up for sale there is a E32 model on offer. The E32 was a big step up in terms of luxury and driving dynamics from the E23, fully modernizing the high end lineup for BMW. As they had with previous models, Alpina immediately had their hand with the new model and breathed their normal aftermarket life into the large executive sedan. That meant a turned up engine good for 250 horsepower (261 without catalyst) although that engine – from the E28 B10 and E30 B6 – was replaced with a 254 horsepower version in 1988 which was shared with the E34 B10 3.5/1. In addition, the normal suspension, wheel and interior treatments were complimented by some minor aerodynamic tweaks and exhaust upgrades to create a decidedly more performance oriented luxury car:
While we usually don’t like to show cars that are not at least good examples of the respective marques that they represent, occasionally some oddballs pop up that are just too good to pass up. Today is such a case, with two unique vehicles popping up on Ebay that rarely get seen at all. Unfortunately, both are in need of a fair amount of work, so depending on your comfort level I wouldn’t really consider either of these cars a turn key, collector vehicle as they stand. However, with the right about know-how, determination and a fair amount of work I think both of these cars could be resurrected to their former glory; certainly, both would bring smiles at shows wherever they went. Let’s look first at the rare duck of the two, the Bitter SC:
