BMW Northwest 2020 Magazine - Flipbook - Page 22
New to the Collection
1991 Alpina Z1 Roadster Limited Edition #C2600063
The latest addition to the BMW Northwest
collection is an Alpina Z1 Roadster Limited
Edition (RLE), based on the BMW Z1 roadster offered from 1988 to 1991. While BMW
built some 8,012 examples of its futuristic
Z1—the Z stands for Zukunft, German for
“future”—Alpina turned just 66 of them
into RLE roadsters from August 1990 to
September 1991. Of those, 33 remained
in Europe while the other 33, including
#C260063 now owned by BMW Northwest,
were sent to Japan. Japan has been a strong
export market for Alpina since 1980, even
though the company doesn’t build cars
with right-hand drive. That only makes
the cars more exotic and alluring, especially when they’re already rare models
2 0 BMW Northwest Life 2020
like the RLE.
The Z1 wasn’t slated for production when
it debuted at the 1987 Frankfurt motor
show, but the public’s ecstatic response
saw BMW rethink that strategy. Designed
by Ulrich Bez, the Z1 was built to demonstrate new technologies like thermoplastic bodywork, a galvanized steel space
frame and a composite underbody panel.
It also featured a new multilink rear suspension in place of the venerable semitrailing arm used by BMW since 1957, and
it located its 2,494cc six-cylinder engine
behind the front axle for a true front midengine layout. The Z1’s most notable feature, of course, were its drop-down doors,
which could be left open while driving for
a wide-open feeling that was more gokart than traditional sports car. Distinctive as they were, those doors meant that
the Z1 wouldn’t meet US safety standards
when the car went into production in 1988.
The few Z1s that did arrive in this country
would do so as private imports rather than
through BMW of North America.
As exciting and innovative as the Z1 was,
its M20 six-cylinder was decidedly ordinary. With only 170 horsepower, it was no
more powerful than the same engine in
a workaday E30 325i sedan. Alpina rectified that by installing its C2 six-cylinder
engine, which displaced 2,693cc and delivered 200 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and
192 lb-ft of torque at 4,900 rpm while also