my Alpina C1 2.3 restoration
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 6:22 am
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
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
