The visit to Bavaria

Notice that this trip was during the summer of 1998. Some information could be old.


The location of Alpina, Ruf and BMW M where all in the southern region of Germany, Bavaria (Bayern in German). As I come from Sweden it was a trip from Scandinavia in Northern Europe to meet my friend Stefan in the beautiful town Lindau besides the Lake of Constance located near the Austrian border. There we went with his BMW Alpina B10 BiTurbo to have a look at his other "toy", bright red Ferrari F355 Berlinetta with black leather interiour. This wasn't the F1 model, it had usual 6 speed transmission.

 
Stefan demonstrated the "tunnel effect". You do it like this;
First, get a Ferrari, second, drive it through  a Autobahn tunnel with the engine running about 5000 rpm, then accelerate all the way out of the tunnel  to the redline at around 8500 rpm. The "music" generated through the tunnel is an unbelievable sound! You must try it! It's like standing beside of a Boeing 747 on the runway with full throttle on the Jet engines! After the Autobahn it was my turn to try it out and I say honest, it's a better car than both the B10 BiTurbo and M5 together. I went through the idyllic landscape on winding roads. I was doing about 130 km/h on a 80 km/h way when we approached a little village with 60 km/h limit. By the time I passed the 60 km/h sign we noticed a van parked near the road and a bright flash from within the van. We got "blitzed" by the German Police! So we went to the local Police Office and asked what would happen. It costed me 100 DM, but it was well worth it!
Anyway, after the Ferrari F355  test-drive we went with the B10 BiTurbo to Buchloe, the little town where Alpina is situated. It was about 160 km and we went about 200 km/h all the time with the BiTurbo, accelerating away from some Mercedes E 320 and tuned up Audi's on the way. We "only" went 260 km/h due the traffic on the Autobahn. But what a acceleration the BiTurbo have over 200 km/h. It's incredible, you are literally pushed to the water buffalo Recaro seats. Nice feeling!

 
I´m sorry to say that we only (?) went 260 km/h with the BiTurbo due the heavy traffic on Autobahn. But we were never overtaken and that´s the way it should be!

This BiTurbo was one of the last produced, distinguished by another type of rear spoiler, other rear-view mirrors and wider kidneys in front. It was painted in the Alpina Blue colour.