Question: Alpina a BMW or not?

[t_marat]

Do you consider an Alpina a tuned BMW? Meaning it still has BMW blood in it. Or, is it completely different car, which can no longer be called a BMW? A car on its own, which is completely different from the original unmodified car.

[shogun]

Alpina are manufacturers not tuners, the German governing body has a loophole which allows Alpina to be classed as a manufacturer, they produce low volume cars which are titled Alpina as opposed to BMW.
They have their own chassis number besides the chassis number of BMW. Alpina chassis numbers usually start with WAP........

http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/alpina.html

List of automobile manufacturers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._manufacturers

[Nick.Hay]

Shogun is right, the are an independant maunfacturer, however, personally,

Neh,

Alpina is just a BMW with a few extra good bits. I'd be more than happy to own an Alpina (or 10!!!) and still call myself a BMW enthusiast. Same yummy lolly, different wrapper...

But do we consider a McLaren F1 as BMW?? Its powered by one of our own, has a fair few other genes from our beloved Bavarians...

Or the Fraser-Nash BMW 328... We love to take this as our own, but its heritage is FIRMLY British?? Do we still love it??


Or the M1?? Lamborghini apparently designed the body (or something)... is it still a BMW, or a BMW powered Lambo with the wrong badges. (I know Lamborghini never actually finished a car...but still)

[t_marat]

But again, do you think an Alpina is a different car? I mean, its built upon a BMW. They make modifications, a lot of it; but the engine they make modifications on, the chasis, suspension and all the other stuff is a BMW stuff, right? So they build upon a BMW engineering, a BMW car. So can an Alpina car be considered a completely different (like Merecedes), not just a deeply tuned (modified) BMW?

[Alexlind123]

Its a BMW.

[BillionPa]

I consider Alpina like the M devision.

different models, different VINs, different factory, different people building it, still a BMW.

neither one designed it from scratch, BMW did, they just messed with the design to their liking.

[GJPinAU]

Do you consider an Alpina a tuned BMW? Meaning it still has BMW blood in it. Or, is it completely different car, which can no longer be called a BMW? A car on its own, which is completely different from the original unmodified car.

Sought of like how Callaway is to Corvette.

[angrypancake]

Alpina = badass, no matter how you look at it. I consider it a bmw. As someone already posted, it's like the M division.

[shogun]

It is definitely more than a tuned car.
New casted blocks, new crankshafts etc, have a look here
http://www.bmwm5.com/alpina/e39b10v8.html

And which of the 'tuners' has an own parts catalog for cylinder heads etc.?
http://www.betuwe.net/~heijckmann/alpina/frontpage.pdf

[Nick.Hay]

Well as Shogun said, technically its a different car, but personally I don't differentiate between the two, and class them all as BMWs.

Is Hartge considered a manufacturer too?? Or are they still classed as a 'tuner'??