1978 Alpina B7 Turbo Coupe. Auto Friday No. 154.

Well, it's the Friday before my holiday — finally — so let's have something beautiful.

To my eye, the E24 is one of the prettiest BMWs ever made, full stop. And this one is an exclusive on top of that, in 32 photos — thanks to Bring a Trailer.

The story begins in the mid-1960s, when Burkard Bovensiepen, an entrepreneur from the Bavarian town of Buchloe, fitted a pair of Weber carburettors under the bonnet of the new BMW 1500 saloon from the Neue Klasse range. The conversion turned out well, so DIY kits followed, then similar kits for the bigger 1800, and so on. Better still, BMW itself recognised the work: cars modified this way kept their factory warranty.

From there it snowballed. Piston and cylinder-head work, the founding of Alpina Burkard Bovensiepen KG, racing cars based on the BMW E9 coupe and, finally, in 1983, the status of an independent car manufacturer. Though underneath, of course, it was still production BMWs.

Today's car is the first Alpina built on the BMW 6 Series E24 coupe. This is the car they took to motor shows and shot for the adverts. Chassis number B7-001. It left the BMW line as a BMW 630CSi with the naturally aspirated three-litre M30B30 straight-six (176 hp and 251 Nm). A KKK turbocharger and a raft of other changes lifted that to 300 hp and 462 Nm — more than the factory 'hot M' M635CSi that arrived a few years later. Other changes included Bilstein gas-pressure dampers, a five-speed Getrag manual gearbox and the obligatory spoilers.

Between 1978 and 1981, 183 of these were built. In 1978 a B7 Turbo Coupe cost 80,000 Deutschmarks — 20,000 more than, say, a Porsche 928, and almost twice the price of the original BMW 630CSi. A similarly reworked B7 Turbo saloon on the E12 body was also made; I'll dig out photos of that later and add them. But enough words for now, on to the pictures. Plenty has been written about Alpina anyway — everyone knows the outfit. No need to pad it out.