One of the most interesting cars Alpina ever built was the E36 3 Series or, as they called it, the B8. It was a monster, powered by one of the biggest engines BMW ever built, the M60B40 V8.
BMW tried to fit a V8 in the E36 before Alpina, when it was developing the M3 but they decided it wasn't worth it. The tuner, on the other hand, considered it was worth the work and did 42 body alterations to fit the 4-liter V8 inside the E36 engine bay.
The end result was nothing short of a monster. Even though the contemporary M3 had a inline 6-cylinder 282 HP engine, that was nothing compared to Alpina's B8 that developed 333 HP and 470 Nm (347 lb-ft) of torque.
The B8 reached 100 km/h in 5.6 seconds and had a top speed of over 280 km/h whereas the E36 M3 was 0.2 seconds slower and had an electronically limited top speed of 250 km/h.
The race we're looking at today features not one but 2 B8 Touring Alpinas, which is an extremely rare event, considering only 221 units were ever built. The only difference between the two is the wheel size. The winner has 17" wheels, whereas the camera car has 19".
We're not sure wether the rim size was the winning factor but we're sure glad to see two mint B8 Alpinas still going at it even 15 years after being pulled out of production.
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