Hello all,
I guess it's time to present my car to the forum as I see the pictures that I uploaded few weeks ago....
I am French (another one...) living close to Versailles, nearby Paris.
I bought this nice E36 B3 cabrio to replace ... a E36 320i cabrio.
I have owned several other 4 seated convertible cars like peugeot 504 V6. For me convertible are very different from all the other cars. I find relaxing to come back home from in the evening with the top down, even with fresh weather.
Anyway, I really like the style of the E36 Cabrio, actually better than the E46. My 320i was nice but the engine clearly did not have enough torque to really enjoy it. So I decided to sell it to find a better one. As it was not making sense to change a 320i by a 328i, I started to look for a nice M3 3.2L full stock with low mileage. I looked for several months, but did not find what I was really looking for. The other problem is that M3 have been frequently abused andd/or don't have a cristal clear history....
Also the M3 gives an image
that I don't quite like: too aggressive (rims, mirrors, from bumper, etc)
I knew what Alpinas were about, but really did not consider them as they are very rare in France and extremely difficult to get homologated. I saw few ads of Alpina B3s in Germany, but I had never seen one in good condition and nice color combination: Blue with light grey or beige interior (no black interior). Some Alpinas don't have very good taste in term of interior colors...
However I always loved the Alpina rims. I actually bought a set of B3 wheels for the future M3 that I had in mind.
A week after buying the set of wheels, a member from a French forum dedicated to E36 cabrio pointed me to the car that was on sale for mobile.de. Even though I don't quite like black cars, I really liked the light grey interior. The silver stripes fit well with the interior color and the rims.
More importantly, the car only had 35000kms on the meter ! Two owners of about 45 years old and clear history. Actually, the color is black mica, which has in fact blue metallic reflects. (look at above pictures).
I got in touch with the French administration to figure out the homologation process. I have been clearly discouraged. In parallel, I have been given the coordinate of a person working at BMW France who helps people to get their Alpinas homologated. He his actually a former Alpina employee. Hopefully I should get the car homologated in the next few weeks now.
I flew to Stuttgart to pick-up the car after many iterations from the seller. I really enjoined my ride from Stuttgart, back to Paris. Since, it has been stuck in my garage since mid April
The car is a B3 cabrio 3.0L , #115/125 manual gearbox, with hardtop.
You may consider that it is a 'small' Alpina, close to a simple 325i but again, performance was clearly not the main criteria. Cabrio was the first criteria, Torque as second, classic and elegance as third and power was last. Switchtronic would have been nice ...
Since I discovered and tried a B8, I could very well change my mind, but unfortunately, I can't afford the 39k€ B8 cabrio currently for sale on mobile.de
I regret that several options are missing: armest, cruise control, 18 OBC, wide mirrors glasses but I will upgrade this as soon as it will be homologated.
Few additional pictures:
By the way, if you find a nice genuine Alpina 3 spokes E36 steering wheel with airbag
, I will buy it right away to replace the 'ugly' four spokes.
Sincerely yours, Emmanuel
Member B3-Cabrio nice BMW Alpina B3 3,0 Cabrio
Webmaster 
) in front of the palace of Versailles built by the French kings... 
Linear Mode
