I like Powerslide

[NickVyse]

[NickVyse]

These are wheely good

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 5 by NickVyse

[Flunder]

I think the pics posted by Nick are really good.

I particularly like the well-made image of the bat 02 at rest on its wide base minilites sitting there at half light on the packed dirt of an unpaved farm lane beneath a dramatic sky. 
 

The photo successfully communicates the recent dynamism of fast work behind the wheel with mud streaked flanks and a dirt encrusted tail panel.
 

The viewer has just happened upon the scene and can smell the Castrol blow-by on the still hot head pipes as they tick away the moments just before sunset and cool down in the country air.

 

Excellent photo.

 

The car is of course is a factory fresh 1968 2002, it’s belt line trim still straight as an arrow.

 

It has a GHE rubber hold-down on the boot lid but no dog bone for the bonnet. A stainless finisher still dresses up the full length exhaust.

[visionaut]

1 hour ago, NickVyse said:

KF - N 36 sure gets around. Pics posted earlier it was red.

 

Edited November 5 by visionaut
So B&W pic, dark car, maybe Tundra? 😆

[Flunder]

1968 was The Year of the BAT

 

Check out the third car back in the three bat conga line of the other of Nick’s pics that I really like.
Schnitzer!

The naked eye knows the image is b&w but the minds eye sees that Schnitzer car in blazing Polaris and Granada. 
 

All the bat pics, however, illustrate examples of the 1968 2002 from what I can see and not the early Alpina 1600-2.

And as much as I have come to love this 68 bat Alpina, quirky as it may be

maybe it is time now to focus on our topic.

 

The objective of this thread is to uncover subject matter relating to the early Alpina 1600-2.

 

It seems clear to me that 1968 marked the transition away from the 1600-2 in favor of the 2 liter car.

 

Let’s try to find material that is 1600 centric.

Edited November 6 by Flunder

[visionaut]

55 minutes ago, Flunder said:

It seems clear to me that 1968 marked the transition away from the 1600-2 in favor of the 2 liter car.

Tom, I’ve shared pic of a few Alpina 1600s running a couple years later ( both factory and privateer)… but they mostly ran alongside and against the 2.0 ltr cars. And performed admirably.

 

But BATs were superseded by Pigs fairly shortly after their arrival. And we ALL know why - - - - cuz Pigs can fly!  lol

 

 

But in ‘68 the works team was already running K-fish, by ‘69 Turbo K-Fish. (Race on Sunday, sell 4 -5 years later on Monday!!)

 

When ETCC finally didn’t group the 2002s and 1600s, there was also a modest revival…

 

 

[Flunder]

Yeah that’s true.

But there must be a lot more out there that we can find that is on topic: Early, as in, 1966 and 1967, ALPINA 1600-2.

 

Like this “new car smell”  image of a Polaris 1600 with side by side Scheel Rs, a  second gen MoMo with the updated frame and silk screened ALPINA logo in white paint, and a no-tint swan in the forward position on the door.

 

It looks to me like it still has a VDO clock in the three hole in the dash cluster. So no in-dash Gossen tach like we’ve seen in most of the better equipped rigs.

 

And an OEM rubber shift knob on the standard short shift lever most likely denotes a 232 and not the available TiSA 5 speed with its typical long shift lever and a Bakelite Typ 901 knob on top.

 

This image is an Alpina promo pic. It looks like a brand new 1967 1600 that just came off the transporter and went straight into the shop for a thorough, post-delivery deep clean and detail to bring it up to a higher state of super-sanitary cleanliness and orderliness. 

This kind of clean-room attention to detail would have been more typical of a wafer fab. 

The only natural thing about this image is the reflection in the mirror of the outdoors through panes of glass of the shop window.

 

I’m guessing the factory interior of this car is Marine Blue judging from the contrast on the door card. But the Scheel Rs from Alpina are sober in all black , just as expected based on the the many Alpina-prepped interiors we’ve seen before in the thread including the entirely untouched gut of the example posted by @BarrettN.

 

 

 

Really neat and clean early Alpina 1600-2 here.

 

Correction: it does have an in-dash Gossen rev counter!

Edited November 6 by Flunder

[NickVyse]

9 hours ago, Flunder said:

maybe it is time now to focus on our topic.

 

The objective of this thread is to uncover subject matter relating to the early Alpina 1600-2.

 

I thought it was about Powerslide magazine! 🙂 

[uai]

7 hours ago, Flunder said:

 

This is one of my reference pics when some "know it all" people say that a car has wrong sliders. Here you can see a scheel seat on a recaro slider that has been modified to be mounted on the lefthand side by turning the handle 180°.
I also have pics showing recaro seats with scheel sliders.

[NickVyse]

3 minutes ago, uai said:

This is one of my reference pics when some "know it all" people say that a car has wrong sliders. Here you can see a scheel seat on a recaro slider that has been modified to be mounted on the lefthand side by turning the handle 180°.
I also have pics showing recaro seats with scheel sliders.

 

You can forgive them their ignorance - I've a pair of those scheel tilting adpater rails and they're very crude. I thought they were home-made until I knew better. Lucky I didn't chuck them in the bin 🙂 

[Conserv]

9 hours ago, Flunder said:

 

… I’m guessing the factory interior of this car is Marine Blue judging from the contrast on the door card…

 

 

 

I hear your point on the door card contrast, but I don’t believe Marine Blue vinyl was available on a 1600-2 during 1966 or 1967. Early Chamonix and Polaris cars were paired with Black vinyl. Could the door card contrast simply be two types of black vinyl, the top trim piece being the slightly slicker, smoother form, the lower pleated section being more matt in texture?

 

If not, maybe this reflects one of the first Marine Blue interiors.

 

The forward-mounted exterior rearview mirror, indeed, seems to confirm likely production prior to early November 1967, when the mirror moved rearward.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[Flunder]

On 11/6/2024 at 4:46 AM, uai said:

Here you can see a scheel seat on a recaro slider that has been modified to be mounted on the lefthand side by turning the handle 180°.
I also have pics showing recaro seats with scheel sliders.

 

Creating a New Segment in the Automotive After Market: Performance Seating

 

uai would you share some of those pics?

 

In 1966 Recaro and Scheel started out to create a new market niche in the high performance automotive aftermarket. An aftermarket category for “sport seats” barely existed before the emergence of the Recaro and Scheel brands. Both new market entrants launched product lines oriented towards the leading auto enthusiast domestic brands in their home market in Germany, most notably the Porsche 911 and BMW 1600-2.

 

During those formative years of creating a new market, the two brands seem to have maintained a commercial relationship. The  drivers of this relationship seem to have been based on a shortage of capital investment in tooling for componentry like hinges, hinge plates, handles and brackets. 

As I understand it, the relationship was one of Recaro as vendor and Scheel as vendee, But there might well have a two way relationship for even bigger components like sliders.

 

This phenomena for the sharing of parts seems to have been limited to the same introductory period as the market launch for the BMW Alpina 1600-2 in 1966-1968.
 

I submit that the successful launch of Scheel and Recaro had a great deal to do with the successful launch of the BMW Alpina 1600-2. Sport seats were a key component of the Alpina package. A brace of sport seats featured prominently for the test cars made available in October and November of 1966 to Auto Motor und Sport and powerslide both powerful influencers in the target market demographic for Scheel and Recaro.

 

Edited November 8 by Flunder

[visionaut]

The very first entry of any 02 in the ETCC occurred in a 1600/2, at the 1967 seventh-round Nürburgring 6-hour race.

 

It was an un-sponsored and un-flared car driven by Jörg Klasen (D) & Peter Otto (D).  #30, it’s recorded as starting the race, but its finish was unknown.

 

This is the only known photo:

 

In ‘66 BMW was competitive in their NKs and 700s.

In ‘67 they were few BMWs, and they were very uncompetitive —with the Autodelta Alfa 1600s and Porsche 911s dominating.

1968 ETCC would change BMW’s fortune as the 02s arrived en masse…

 

[visionaut]

The 2nd ever appearance of an 02 in ETCC was the first race of 1968, the Monza 4 Hours. #38, a 1600/2 driven by Henne & Basche placed 9th in Div.2

 

<no photos>
 

The second race, at Aspern, included a 2nd event for the same 1600/2 (now #50) driven by Henne. He took 7th in Div.2 this time.

 

<no photos>
 

At ETCC round 3 at Snetterton, the BMW AG team arrives with a pair of 2002s ( Div.3) AND a pair of now-retired NK 2000s. Making them the 3rd & 4th ever 02s in ETCC.

 

BMW team 2002 #71 took 3rd in Div.3 even though it lost an engine mount. It was piloted by Quester & Basche. Not bad for the 2002s first race ever, and against the bigger displacement competition.

 

The second 2002, #72, DNF’d with diff failure on lap 72. The same two drivers are listed, so I suspect they started in separate cars.. (?)

 

<argh, no photos>

 

ETCC round 4, the Belgrade 2 hours, brought the first ever 02 victory. Dieter Quester piloted the #27 BMW AG 2002 to 1st in Div.3. in the car’s second event.

 

A 1600ti (#26) driven by Pavel Pirnat also took 2nd in Div.2. (5th ever 02 entry)

 

And a second 2002, driven by Klaus Steinmetz DNF’d with engine trouble on Lap 3. (6th ever)

 

<again no dang photos>

 

Next installment:  the first appearance of BMW-Alpina 02s… With photos!

(I’m getting there Tom!  )

 

 

[Flunder]

hobby - Das Magazin der  Teknic

 

       “…And is G. Hack more responsible for the Alpina legend than anyone else not named Bovensiepen?…”

                mccusername

                September 29, 2024

                I like powerslide

 

The editorial pen and product placement know-how of Gert Hack must have been behind the  wonderful Hobby article and the epic display of ALPINA 1600-2  performance equipment splashed across its cover and featured  in great detail within its pages.

 

 

In this artfully cropped promo shot, we see the now familiar Granada Rot  BMW Alpina 1600-2 just nosing into the frame. The photo editor who cropped this promo shot followed the designer’s dictum “balance mass, vary form” to create a successful image on the half-page.

Take a look.

 

Molded nose trim and small bumperettes combine with a Talbot Berlin 333 wing mirror and SEV Marchal lighting to place this 1600-2 squarely into our “early car”

psyche.

 

But for contemporary readers of hobby things like Talbot mirrors and Marchal lamps were modifications well within the realm of attainability for virtually any consumer who could afford a BMW 1600-2. Both Talbot and Marchal were positioned as OEM quality, premium brands within their respective product categories with meaning and context to enthusiasts well beyond their functional benefits. And perhaps it was Gert Hack who used the magic of  the aftermarket and his keen sense of Alpina’s target demographic to such good effect here.

 

Here’s how.

 

By conspicuously  juxtaposing examples of low cost, but high quality products, represented by products from Talbot and Marchal, shown already bolted onto a new 1600-2 platform, with a mouth watering array of expensive Alpina exotica, he establishes a powerful message with visual reinforcement to successfully blur the line and build a bridge between the attainable and the highly aspirational.

 

 

Then, as now, no road-use oriented owner of an early BMW 1600-2  needs things like fully-machined hemispherical combustion chambers, let alone exotica like chronometric rev counters. But Gert Hack knew how to get consumers to see even the most extravagant expenditure, on what was a budget price-point entry level platform like the BMW 1600-2, as rational, even necessary steps on the path of enthusiast car modification.

 

 

Marketing acumen, knowledge of consumer psychology and a keen sense of how it is best manipulated for commercial  success in the performance segment of the automotive aftermarket made Gert Hack a key contributor to the brand-building success of what was then scarcely more than a small player in a cottage industry. 

 

 

 

His earliest product placement and editorial efforts on behalf Alpina, in those long since past days of 1966 and 1967, still work their magic. And so it remains for those of us, like some readers here on faq, who are performance-minded keepers of the early BMW 1600-2,  that seek to mix the heady brew of performance, authenticity and abject nostalgia within the aura of Alpina.

 

 

The powerful magic of Gert Hack transformed aspirational desire to aching need.

 

 

 

Thanks to mccusername for providing his memorable observation on the contribution of Gert Hack.

 

 

Edited November 9 by Flunder