How do they make it profitable?

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PhillV8S
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How do they make it profitable?

Post by PhillV8S » Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:34 pm

I was perusing the global production figures of the modern era Alpina’s (as you do) and see that the last B7 model pre and Post lci model production came to a grand total of 20 cars!
Can Alpina make a profit after all the R&D required for such a car? I wonder what the break the break even number is for the models they produce.
This is the rarest of modern era Alpina produced, even rarer than the limited edition 50 edition car!
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Post by v8 ego » Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:27 pm

Don't forget that the F01 and F02 was sold in the US and a total of 1,770 cars were sold there plus 803 E65s.

Equally the engine in the E65, as you know was used in the E60/61/63/64 and the engine in the F01/02 was used in the F06/10/11/12/13 and I would think that much of the R&D would have been on the engine.
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Post by PhillV8S » Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:04 pm

I am going from the stats for global production from this site. Where have you got your numbers from? You would see B7 with B7 in the thousands but I haven’t seen this and on the register here or the Alpina archive site.

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Post by PhillV8S » Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:28 pm

Looking at the U.S. cars does seem to make these figures odd! Are the U.S. cars made in Buchloe or by BMW under license? Maybe an anomaly in the production stats on this site then??
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Post by v8 ego » Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:53 pm

US cars are made by Buchloe but for whatever reason are not given Alpina VIN numbers but sit in a specific BMW VIN range specified for the B7 for BMW North America.

If you look on eBay.com, cars.com or auto trader.com, you can find Alpinas for sale by in the USA they list the VIn in the advert.

Being the saddo that I am I have trawled through bimmer.work building up a record of all of the cars. The USA had F01 and F02 B7s in RWD and X-drive, pre-LCI and LCI.

Only the E65 LCI B7 was sold in the USA from 2007 to 2008 and the VINs were DT89xxx

Hope that helps.
Regards,

James

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2005 BMW 730d Sport (SOLD)
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Post by neil » Sat Jan 20, 2018 5:20 pm

Hi

The page you are looking at is the UK page - so it only shows global production for the cars that make it to the UK.

As James says the US cars are treated seperately - as they are sold as BMWs in the US.

If you check the following page you can see the Global Production numbers for every model - note these are taken from the OALBB book and so are at the point that that book was presenting.

http://www.thealpinaregister.com/production

You'll need to scroll right + down to see everything !

Thanks

Neil

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Post by Charles » Sat Jan 20, 2018 9:21 pm

Ever wondered why ALPINA have access to models as early as they do to allow them to develop their cars and launch them at the same time (or sometimes earlier) than BMW do?

On car sales alone, the numbers don't add up.

However, there is a very close relationship between BMW and ALPINA relating to development - be it engines, M division and other special projects - which mean a very different equation applies.
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Post by 190Colditz » Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:15 am

v8 ego wrote:US cars are made by Buchloe but for whatever reason are not given Alpina VIN numbers but sit in a specific BMW VIN range specified for the B7 for BMW North America.
Federal US registration of manufacturers is really hard to obtain and expensive in terms of smashing up cars and those costs aren't worth it for Alpina to be a recognised make in the US, so they become a BMW sub-brand to latch on to Munich's conformity certification. VIN numbers are manufacturer identifiers with WAP being Alpina as a manufacturer (actually WA is Germany and P is Alpina) so Alpinas can't have that on a US VIN because that manufacturer is not recognised in the US.

Kind of dull, but that's why.
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Post by PhillV8S » Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:19 am

Evepryday is a school day here.👍🏻
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Post by Norrie » Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:01 pm

In a recent interview Alpina stated it was no long able to offer factory visits or even for customers to collect their vehicle from the factory and expect a tour. The is now due to the amount of research and development they are undertaking for BMW, it is all highly confidential.

I suspect that they get paid very well for this work and this allows them to utilise some time, skills, equipment on the ALPINA production.

BMW also understand that ALPINA provides a buffer between BMW owners switching to other German cars, it gives an opportunity for the BMW customer to experience something different.
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Re: alpina

Post by neil » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:46 pm

Norrie wrote:In a recent interview Alpina stated it was no long able to offer factory visits or even for customers to collect their vehicle from the factory and expect a tour. The is now due to the amount of research and development they are undertaking for BMW, it is all highly confidential.
This has been the case for many years - and why we had to stop our annual visits. Once they built their new engine development building they stopped all tours.

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Post by Norrie » Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:06 am

The interview with Andreas he said " they hoped they would be able to recommence visits for larger groups sometime in the future".

I am very please I got the opportunity to go in 2015, it was a fantastic experience.
E65 B7 4.4 V8 supercharged No 106 (1 of 11 B7 built for UK)
F22 M235i - everyday driver
E 39 523i sold May 2023
E92 325i - written off by X5 I was not driving!
E92 335D Twin Turbo - sold to Sytner Alpina
E 60 - 525D new - sold to Cooper BMW
E 60 - 530D new - sold at auction
E 39 - 520i new - sold at auction
E 30 - 316i new Touring - sold at auction
Audi A6 2.5 Tdi had 2
Audi Coupe GT 1986 new
Mitsubishi Gallant & Sigma
Honda accord 2.2 coupe
Ford Escort 1.6 worst car in the world

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