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Some people rescue stray animals, I rescue cars. I found this BMW on a used car lot about 10 years ago, after being invited to take a look at it by the car's owner who had it there on consignment. It needed some help.
The owner said it was an Alpina, and quite a rare car brought over by a naval officer in the 1980's. He said it was very fast with a special turbocharged engine. Sounded interesting.
I wouldn't say the dealership was doing a particularly good job of representing it. The balloons that they attached to it - a sure way to impress a vintage BMW collector - were deflated and laying on the ground. The bonnet was open and the doors unlocked. The battery was dead and even with a boost the car wouldn't fire. The interior of the car was absolutely full of mice droppings, including all over the drivers seat. All of the service records in the glove box were shredded along with the glove box lining and there was another big nest in the trunk. The car didn't have any of these issues when he dropped it off. Nice job guys.
The car was purported to be an Alpina B7S Turbo, which I remembered were the fastest sedans and coupes of the early 1980's, with a top speed of 160mph. They won the Road & Track 'Top Speed' contests, while the Ruf Porsches were the fastest sports cars. But the car didn't have the correct documentation, nor any manufacturer plaques which would have verified it. Also, it had lost the Alpina livery, spoilers and the seats were different. It did have the Pierburg fuel injection system, which didn't work, and for which there was apparently only one person in Germany who knew how to fix it.
I think the owner was looking for $20,000 for the car. I offered him $2,500. It said it was full of mice, didn't run, and there was no documentation or manufacturer plaques to authenticate that it was a real Alpina. He wasn't very happy but took my offer, saying that's what happens when you don't have the time to look after things. I had the car towed away and started to work on it.
I got some gloves, mask and a lot of disinfectant and cleaned out the mice remnants. We got it going simply by replacing the battery and connecting the digital ignition module which somebody had unplugged. It ran nicely.
The handling was terrible - the car was all over the road. A check of the tire pressures revealed two tires at about 25psi, one at 15psi and the other at 65psi! It drove straight after we equalized all the pressures.
I now had a running, driving car. The first day I drove it home somebody spotted the car parked near my condo and posted a photo on one of the Alpina forums. The thread lit up, and my car was now famous. All I had to do to sell it was park it on the street, not even with a 'for sale' sign, and a long list of buyers came forward. The car had been on the used car lot for three months. I felt like a car selling genius.
I had many instant offers but I wanted to find out exactly what I had, and sort the car out. Turns out it was easy to authenticate. Alpina bought the last 60 BMW E12 5 series body shells and the last 30 E24 6 Series body shells to make their B7S Turbo sedans and coupes. The 60 sedans were all blue with a blue tartan interior and the coupes were all green with a green tartan interior - except for a grey car made for one of the Quant family members and another with Recaro Ortho C seats (mine). If your VIN is in the correct range, you have an original Alpina. Alpina has kept good records, and I got the confirmation from the factory.
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