Burkard Bovensiepen died on October 12 after a long illness at the age of 87.
Bovensiepen had been working on BMW vehicles since 1962, when he developed a Weber twin carburetor for the 1500 that caught the attention of BMW's sales director at the time. As a testament to the high quality of Alpina's products, BMW decided in 1964 to maintain the full factory warranty on vehicles modified by Alpina.
The Alpina name comes from his father's company, which manufactured office equipment.
Although Alpina started as a tuning company, it was recognized as a full-fledged automobile manufacturer by the German Ministry of Transport in 1983. The vehicles have an Alpina-specific VIN number that overwrites the original BMW VIN number. The idea behind the products modified by Alpina is not to collide with BMW M, as the vehicles modified in Buchloe are more comfortable and luxurious touring cars than pure sports cars.
While most of us have heard of Burkard Bovensiepen in connection with Alpina's meticulously upgraded road cars, he also had great success modifying touring cars in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1988, the management decided to withdraw from racing and concentrate exclusively on optimizing BMWs. In 2022, the Alpina brand was acquired by the BMW Group.
The existing collaboration expires at the end of 2025, so there will be no changes to Alpina's operations until 2026. Senior officials from both companies have indicated that Alpina will be positioned in the upper segments of the market, filling the gap between BMW and Rolls-Royce.
Source: Alpina Belgium