Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Today we are a family-owned company that was founded by my father.
My brother and I are practically the second generation.
At the 1961 Frankfurt Auto Show, BMW presented the new BMW 1500,
which had an interesting, very modern engine but a very small carburetor.
That gave me the idea of equipping this car with four carburetors.
We were able to increase the power from 80 to 92 HP.
BMW liked it, too, and since 1962 we have been in close collaboration with BMW.
It's a combination of a small manufacturer and a large partner, BMW,
with a very small team with a great many enthusiasts...
We all want these products to be the very "top of the top", the best in the world.
For Alpina, it is important that we are in a position to serve worldwide markets.
We naturally always try to turn out premium products
in terms of engine power, chassis, interiors etc., i.e.
a vehicle that is in complete harmony.
Alpina has never had a very large development team. Working on a base of products from BMW is terrific.
At Alpina, our goal is naturally to build vehicles for people
who really understand their cars and understand something about driving,
who expect the top level in all respects,
and it is of course extraordinarily important for us to work with a partner
who also produces premium tyres.
We have been fitting our cars with MICHELIN since as far back as 1985 and it has certainly worked out well.
Yes, when I was a student I also did some racing in the 1980s,
and naturally that helps a lot to understand the relationships between the chassis, the wheels and tyres,
and of course comes in very handy in our cooperation with Michelin.
Alpina has a strong motor racing tradition dating back to the 1970s, for example with racers such as Niki Lauda.
These days, of course, Alpina concentrates primarily on cars for the road,
but we build the best driver's cars you can buy today.
But we also want to demonstrate our capabilities in racing, and we have been very successful at it.
In 2011, we won the most important GT3 race in Europe, the overall championship.
We achieved this together with Michelin, because here once again we used Michelin tyres.