Alpina

Alpina was, and still is, the main aftermarket tuner of BMW automobiles. Alpina is now a subdivision of the BMW Group, but at the time of the E21 production it was still independant from BMW. Alpina got its start when the owner Burkhard Bovenseipen built a kit for the BMW 1500. With some help from his father and backed by the tooling facilities at the Alpina typewriter factory he built the first modest upgrade to the early M10 engine. Consisting of carbuetors and a camshaft he invited the technical staff of BMW to come out and view his tuning kit that he had built. BMW was very impressed with the power of newly "tuned" engine and could find no faults with the kit. Mr. Bovenseipen earned the much needed respect of BMW that would go far in his future business.

Alpina Models
The most important model in E21 Alpina production is undoubtedly the B6 2.8. This car has an engine based on that from the 528i from the same time; which is a big six (M30), as opposed to the small six (M20) fitted in the 320/6 and 323i. The standard configuration of the 2.8L engine yields 177HP, however the engine by Alpina developed 200HP and 248Nm torque, thanks to custom pistons, custom combustion chambers and a different fuel injection system.
In August 1981, Alpina did some modifications which raised the power output to 218HP.
The B6 had an uprated suspension with Bilstein shocks all around, and Ahle springs.

Some Numbers

Model	kW/HP	Displacement	Torque (Nm)	Cylinders	Produced	Number produced
B6 2,8	160/218	2788 cm³	265	6	09/81 - 01/83	209
B6 2,8	147/200	2788 cm³	248	6	11/78 - 08/81	324
C1 2,3	125/170	2316 cm³	210	6	04/80 - 07/83	462

Images
B6 Images C1 Images