For years, American enthusiasts have longed for Alpina’s slim touring models and wondered why they have never made it through the Atlantic. As it turned out, the idea was not quite off the table. In a recent interview, Alpina boss Andreas Bovensiepen admitted that the brand was considering bringing a car to the US market. However, the hurdles were not about interest or even prize. Unfortunately, they never made it that far – they came up with the amazing costs of homologation.
A US -Alpina car? Almost
The moderator of the show rises to bring some of the Touring models to the USA. He quotes the success of models such as the RS6 Avant, which sometimes even orders over the RRP. Bovensiepen nods with the head and agrees with the feeling. “We have examined in recent years to take over a car,” he says. “But the difficulty is that … if the basic car is not on the market, like a car in America does not have a venuum trace test, it was too expensive.” According to Bovensiepen, the homologation made the product unprofitable. For series production that is as limited as Alpinas US tour offers would have been, it simply couldn’t work. According to reports, Bovensiepen shakes a number that was set up by the host – even at 150,000 US dollars – and says “No”.
How much would it have cost?
However, he also notes that the brand has never had to collapse a car for itself. Since the brand’s cars share so much with conventional BMW models – which have already been tested – and Alpina do not sell variants in markets that BMW would not otherwise offer, Bovensiepen is not exactly known how expensive it could be for homologate. “Five cars or more” is Bovensiepen estimate for crash requirements, with “possibly 3 to 5 million US dollars”. We would like to emphasize that they are in no way concrete numbers. However, they are the own words of Bovensiepen.
What if BMW sold cars here?
All of this raises the question: Where was Alpina when BMW act Offer car on the US market? For example: The F31 3 series touring did it in the States, as did the E61 Touring and E91 Touring models. If the homologation is really everything in Alpina’s way of the giving models over the ocean, why should you limit Alpina models at all?
We circling it on a lack of demand, but claim that the demand would have been there if the company would sell the cars here right from the start. In any case, it is interesting to know that Alpina was considering bringing a car into the state. And maybe even more fascinating, the fact that the car manufacturer had considered it after Our banks left car.
Source: Motomantv Podcast
