I’ve been driving around in a Mini Cooper S for about a year now and it’s actually quite a good car. It was nearly £30k new (not what I paid) so it’s impressively loaded. If anyone wants to know more about the roller skate let me know and I’ll throw some words together.

The Alpina is pretty much ready. Nearly.

As you may know I collected the car from my nightmare garage earlier this year and drove it straight into my garage, made it SORN and completely forgot about it.

Recently, I’ve been more interested in it. I think the lack of a more dramatic piece of exotica has forced my attention to it’s quirky nature. Getting this car done was a complete nightmare. It went from company to company, from one side of the country to the other. The workshops working on the car would eventually call me, begging me to take the car away as they were sick of seeing it. Neatly 18 months of stress and tears.

So here we are. As you can see from the photos, the car is pretty much immaculate. The body shell is almost without fault with not a single piece of rust anywhere. The whole car has been completely resprayed from a bare shell. Any consumable component of the car has been replaced with many other items changed too. New suspension system, complete new braking system, all pipes, replacement original Alpina exhaust system and an engine rebuild.

As I said, it’s not perfect. There’s a strong smell of fuel in the car (almost certain there’s a leak on the fuel lines), there’s lately a lot of smoke too from the exhaust – that shouldn’t happen with the new gaskets etc. I also think the engine could do with a proper good map. It seems a little down on its power, but that may have more to do with the fact that with all the holes filled, the car weighs more!

Official figures:

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

Other than that, I’m still desperate to find a replacement drivers seat. The ‘houndstooth’ cloth trim has been damaged over time and I cannot get a replacement anywhere. Also, one of the scumbags who worked on the car has stolen the original Alpina wooden gearstick.

Otherwise, I love it. It sounds fantastic, that 2.7 really does have a unique, honey smooth sound to it that is very typical of the E30 six cylinders of that era. I also think it’s one of the best looking E30’s on the road now.

I would gladly take some recommendations for a good workshop who I can trust to do some mechanical work on the car to complete it.

Have eventually pulled the Alpina out of the workshop it was in. After a whole year in their care, all they had done was a respray on the shell. It’s the same story all over that 99% of people doing what I am will recite with almost pin point accuracy. The temptation to pull in new jobs whilst working on a major project is too great for the small workshops, so deadlines are never met.

I’ve now moved to a new firm who have guaranteed a 3 month turn around on the car – I really want the car back by summer, hoping not to have to pack it away for the winter. Really looking forward to this, hope the new firm do a good job.

Meanwhile, the Q7 is about to be dumped in May. It’s time for a replacement, but as always, nothing ever goes to plan. I’ve had repeated call back failures from two different Audi dealerships. I’ve literally left half a dozen messages, I’m actually shouting down the phone “Guys, I wanna give you some of my cash!!” but it’s to no avail. I often wonder if the car industry have any clue as to why it’s crashing and burning. Even Nissan have been awful. I’ve been looking into Qashqai’s as a possible ’sensible’ replacement, but again, they simply do not return calls. In fact, I’ve left 4 messages for Porsche too! No call backs. Either my phone’s fucked, or I’m on some kind of car dealer blacklist!?

On top of that, some dickhead went into the side of me on the North Circular. He came out waaaay worse, but irritatingly, said he would be defending his case. I didn’t bother pursuing with notifying insurers. Today, I found 2 beautiful, massive door dings. And all my tyres are shot. Lovely, £300 a corner.

Finally, had the RS detailed by Nathan at Cambridge Autogleam. Always does a wonderful job, but I think the car needs a proper 2 day restoration job. Still, took only a few days before some twat decided to use my front bumper as a parking sensor. I mean for christ sakes, how can you not see a florescent green Porsche GT3 behind you?

Drove the car into work Friday and decided to take a tour of the west end on the way back. The weather was glorious and the RS was magnificent, resplendent in its new coat of wax. It was a surreal experience as the car attracted an immense amount of attention. Last time I had pedestrian traffic like this was in the Nissan GTR. But this was something else. I stopped off at the awesome Princi at Wardour Street for a chocolate eclair and I swear, I was frozen in the car. I simply could not get out as I counted at one point 5 people taking photos of me.

Eventually, I plucked up enough courage and stepped out, walked into Princi only to see the car getting a ticket on the windshield. A £50 chocolate eclair then. In front of 1000 people. Awesome.

For those who didn’t know, my Alpina turned out to be a toffee apple. It’s a term used in the trade to describe a delicious looking skin that disguises rotten bodywork underneath. My car turned out to be a bit of a dog. So we went right back down to the shell. The whole car was stripped, cleaned, galvanised, sanded, wielded and repainted in its original Lachs Silver glory.

It’s starting to look fabulous again, even though it’s just a shell. Next step is to rebuild the original Alpina C2 2.7 engine.

Update soon.

With true loyalty to its number plate, its pompously cheeky rear is in defiance of society’s willingness and obligation to lean proportions. And does this fat lady sing or what? V8 vocals have come of age with German vehicles of late, from the RS4 to the C63, these slick coupés now come with soundtracks that earn them proper GT status.

We’ve both had some fantastic fun on the circuits, especially one occasion at Snetterton when we were both black flagged for pretty much driving the entire circuit sideways. The race controller was amused, thankfully, but asked us to tone things down a bit! Unfortunately, we’re recognised now at Snetterton as the “two white cars”

Despite some minor problems with his 7speed transmission (sometimes when choosing a gear, his computer says no), he’s still able to enjoy its rear drive characteristics aplomb.

I’ve been looking for an E30 BMW (80’s 3 series BMW) for a couple of years now and have just been watching them with that kind of passive interest someone has for something they feel they’d never really get in the real world. However, whilst going through the Piston Heads classifieds, I happened upon this almighty Gem of a car.

This model is the C2 2.7. There were only 159 of these cars made worldwide in all the variants, including convertible and touring models. It basically left the factory as a 325is and is then immediately sent through Alpina to turn it into the C2. It’s bored out to 2.7, gas flowed head, mahle pistons, Alpina camshaft, Alpina ECU, Alpina suspension, Alpina exhaust and the awesome body kit.

Now, the car’s not been looked after so well by the last owner who was, quite frankly, an idiot who didn’t understand the unique nature of this car, choosing instead to treat it like a piece of shit 318i. It’s got a few things wrong with it, like it’s been fitted with cheap shit springs, the exhaust is not original anymore and there are a number of cosmetic points that need attention.

Overall, the bodywork – at least externally, is in great condition and I’m amazed at how many heads it turns – more so than the GT3 sometimes. My aim with this car is to bring it to it’s original glory and invest in some good suspension, brakes, exhaust etc. It has been quoted for a full restoration and subject to timing, I will be going through with this.

I’m really in love with this car, it sounds fantastic and looks superb – I’m quite simply amazed by the attention it gets. I’ve had a ridiculous amount of people stop me in the street and ask me to buy the car. I had one person follow me home in his car and made an offer there and then. Only 3 weeks ago somebody left a note on my windscreen with his full details asking to buy the car.

It’s also what’s called a ‘Tech 1′ which is the chrome bumper versions and pre-facelift. Personally, I think the Tech 1’s look better and this car will always command a premium over standard versions. As an example, a nice 325i will go for about £3-4k. I’m hoping with enough TLC, this will be valued at circa £15k.

The latter photos are from the Total BMW cover shoot it was part of a few years back.

Some pictures: