2005 BMW 8 Series Inventory Project

Vision

Consolidate and aggregate BMW 8 Series production data including Alpina B12 5.0/5.7 and Special Editions.

Objectives

  1. Inventory 100% of the 30,621 8 Series produced from 1989-99 by end of year (EOY) 2005 with a specific build sheet - Completed 10/2006

  2. Catalog 25% (7,655) of the 30,621 8er's produced by 2012 with pictures, information, or sales data - Completed 02/2012

This project continues to be an enormous undertaking. The long-range plan is to have the information available to the community via 8Coupe.com.

Special Notes

Alpina B12's (as of 05/2014)

  • B12 5.0 - 60.8% of the BMW/Alpina build sheets are matched to an Alpina B12 5.0:
    • Identified 95 of the 97 BMW/Alpina build sheets
    • Matched 59 B12 5.0's with a BMW build sheet
    • Identified 72 B12 5.0's with the BMW Alpina Build Number (1 through 97)
  • B12 5.7 - 93.0% of the BMW/Alpina build sheets are matched to an Alpina B12 5.7:
    • Identified 57 of the 57 BMW/Alpina build sheets - Completed
    • Matched 53 B12 5.7's with a BMW build sheet
    • Identified 57 B12 5.7's with the Alpina Build Number (1 through 57) - Completed

BMW 830Ci

  • All 18 prototype 830Ci's (auto and 6spd manual) are identified with a specific build sheet
  • These developmental vehicles were built in calendar year 1992

Special Editions

Japan M-Individual (M60/M62 840CiA's)

  • Special packaged car by the BMW M division for the Japanese market
  • Production period: 4/1996 - 4/1999
  • Identified 298 official M62 840's, 1 unofficial = 299
  • Identified 3 M60 840 protoypes (10-12/1995)

Mexico Luxury (M73 850CiA's)

  • Special packaged car for the Mexican market
  • Production period: 7/1995 - 11/1996
  • Identified 38 M73 850CiA's

Platinum Edition (M73 850CiA's)

  • Special packaged car for the Middle Eastern market
  • Production period: 3/1998 - 5/1999
  • Identified 61 M73 850CiA's

Alpina Edition (M73 850CiA's)

  • Alpina interior packaged car for the Middle Eastern market
  • Production period: 12/1998 - 5/1999
  • Identified 10 M73 850CiA's

Timeline

Month/YearActivity
04/201410,000 8er's cataloged equalling 32% of the worldwide production
06/20139,187 8er's cataloged equalling 30% of the worldwide production
05/20138,888 8er's cataloged equalling 29% of the worldwide production
02/20127,655 8er's cataloged equalling 25% of the worldwide production
Fundamental MILESTONE of the 2005 BMW 8 Series Inventory Project has been reached after more than 7 years of archiving efforts
01/2012EOY 2011 - 7,476 8er's cataloged worldwide
Worldwide shipments by type code, destination country, calendar year going online
12/2011VBS-Report available to registered owners
07/20117,000 8er's cataloged worldwide
01/2011EOY 2010 - 6,233 8er's cataloged worldwide
05/2010Sweden E31 Owner joins Registry Team
Record number of 8's cataloged in one month: 223
02/2010Developed VBS-R beta v0.5; owners evaluation in progress
Norwegian E31 Owner joins Registry Team
5,000 8er's cataloged worldwide
07/2009Developed VBS-R beta v0.3; owners evaluation in progress
Turkey E31 Owner joins Registry Team
4,497 8er's cataloged worldwide
06/2009Alpina B12 Coupe Registry web pages designed
Dinan 850 Twin Turbo (TT) Register launched
4,221 8er's cataloged worldwide
09/2008Developed VBS-R beta v0.2
New online database schema completed
12/2007Created expanded build sheet beta (VBS-R v0.1)
Initial global 8er Exterior/Interior color combinations summary launched online
03/2007Color data audit completed
Exterior/Interior color summary for global 8er's launched online
10/2006100% of 8er's inventoried
Overall, a two year, four month effort
All 30,621 8's inventoried with a build sheet for each individual car - MILESTONE
12/200562% of 8er's inventoried - EOY 2005
19,128 8's inventoried
07/2005All 7,803 M60/62 840's inventoried
55% of 8er's inventoried
16,841 8's inventoried
02/2005All 7,232 NA 8er's inventoried
12/2004Formally formed project and audacious goal to catalog all worldwide E31's
50% of 8er's inventoried - EOY 2004
All 1,510 S70 850CSi's inventoried
15,310 8's inventoried
06/2004Informally began with North America (NA) focus
All NA M62 840CiA and M73 850CiA inventoried

Related Articles

Vehicle Build Sheet Report - VBS-R - finally available

Just ahead of Santa Claus the 8Coupe.com team has eventually managed to finish a project long in the making.

The Vehicle Build Sheet Report (VBS-R) is filled to the brim with VIN specific unique background information that puts every conceivable statistical aspect for any given 8-series vehicle into a perspective.
The information contained is not available elsewhere and by far surpasses what even the manufacturer would be able to offer.
You will find precise figures for your car in relation to the…
Christoph
December 21, 2011 at 8:00 PM

Oct 1, 2011 - half the 8-series has turned 20

Half the produced E31´s today exceed the age of 20 years. 22 months into the series production but with almost 8 years to go, the majority of 8-series Coupé´s roamed the streets worldwide. The onset of the production for the E31 was very bright but a sharp decline in demand and consequently production numbers late in 1991 reduced the output from a maximum of near 70 cars per working day to only 20 and below in the years to come.

By October 1, 1991 the distribution of cars looked like below - all…
Christoph
October 1, 2011 at 8:00 PM

Current status of the 8Coupe.com registry archive project

Nearing 7,000 cars in the 8Coupe.com registry archive in the following is an overview of how those cars are distributed amongst the different production variants.

On average more than 35% of each variant has been archived with the largest percentages for the cars with higher intrinsic values (Alpina, CSi), later model years and North American (NA) based cars. The lowest rates are assigned to the old M70 based cars, be it with manual or automatic gearbox of which many did not survive the tides of…
Christoph
July 15, 2011 at 8:00 PM