So, what the heck is an Alpine?

An Alpine is a car made by the Société des Automobiles Alpine SAS, a French racing and sports car manufacturer established in 1955 in the city of Dieppe, located in the Normandy region in the north of France.

Dieppe is also known for the Dieppe Raid in WW II. On August 19th, 1942, the Allies landed a force of Canadian and British soldiers intending to capture the city’s port. It was supposed to be a test of German coastal defences, which proved to be really good. Half of the 6000 allies’ soldiers that landed were killed or made prisoners. The Royal Air Force lost 106 planes, the Royal Navy lost 33 landing crafts and one destroyer. All the tanks and vehicles landed were lost.

Dieppe was eventually liberated on September 1st, 1944, that is 3 months after D-Day.

Dieppe is also the birthplace of Jean Rédélé, a car enthusiast that opened a Renault dealership in the city and started rallying in 1950 with a Renault 4CV.

He became quite successful in rally races that took place in the early 50s in the Alps. He won the prestigious Coupe des Alps (Coup of the Alps) rally in 1954 and the famous Mille Miglia the next year.

After these momentous events, he created the brand Alpine, to develop sports cars based on standard Renault made models.

The first Alpine car was the Alpine A106, which was presented in 1955, based on the Renault 4CV mechanics. The fibreglass made body was created by the Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti. The car used a very rigid tubular backbone, which became a trademark for the brand. The car was originally a cabriolet (convertible) and afterwards, a 2 + 2 closed coupe (“berlinette”) was developed. The A106 had a rear-mounted 4 cylinders in line 0,75-liter engine that produced from 21 to 43 hp depending on the level of tuning applied. Not really much power, but the A106 weight was just 540 kg (1190 lb), and when coupled to a custom-designed 5-speed gearbox, provided enough power to make the little car a compact sports car with precise handling. Only 650 A106 were ever built.

The successor of the A106 was the A108, which was based on the mechanics of the Renault Dauphine. The engine was a 4 inline 0,85-liter unit based on the Gordini version of the Dauphine’s engine. It produced from 37 to 53 hp depending on the tuning, again not much but matched with a 5-speed gearbox and a weight of just 530 kg, it was a feisty little sports car. The fibreglass body was again a Michelotti design.

You may be wondering how such little engines could be employed in sports cars. The explanation is that in those days, a 5-speed gearbox was really exotic. Most cars featured 3-speed automatic gearboxes with hydraulic couplings that sucked a lot of power from the engine. Also, cars used a separated chassis and body, both made of steel and therefore very heavy. In fact, the chassis used to be so rigid that a car could be run without its body since it did not provide any additional stiffness to the structure.

Therefore, a light Renault chassis with a tubular framework and a fiber glass body provided similar structural strength and saved a huge amount of weight. The power to weight ratio of an American car was not that different from the one of an Alpine. And the Alpine’s agility and handling were orders of magnitude better than the hydraulic power steering typical of Detroit made cars. The A108 was presented at the Paris Motor Show in 1957. Only 100 A108 were ever built. But curiously, the Brazilian subsidiary of the US company Willys-Overland (famous after designing the US Army Jeep utility vehicle, widely used in WW II by the allies) signed an agreement with Alpine to produce the A108 in Brazil, where it was known as the Willys Interlagos.

This car had great success in racing in that country and the Willys factory of Santo Amaro, Sao Paulo built 822 Interlagos between 1962 and 1966.

The next model, and Alpine’s claim to fame, was the 1962 A110. This car was based on the Renault 8 and started production with a 4 inline, 0,96-liter engine that generated 51 hp. The engine was quickly upgraded to a 4 inline, 1,1-liter Gordini tuned engine with an output of 95 hp.

Coupled with the usual 5-speed gearbox and a weight of 703 kg, the A110 became a familiar presence in the European rally championship, where it achieved great success. In 1971, the car received another engine upgrade, this time was a 1,6-liter aluminium block version of the R8 Gordini engine, equipped with two Weber carburettors that generated 125 hp. This made it possible for the A110 1600S version to reach a top speed of 210 km/h (125 mph).

Top: A 1970 Alpine A110 1600S. Bottom left: A 1970 Mustang Mach 1: not really a match for the A110 1600S Bottom right: Top view of an Alpine 100 1800SC

To get an idea of what level of performance this power to weight ratio could offer, think about the following data: the 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 came with a 5,8-liter V8 engine (basically the idea of a pony car) that generated 250 hp, coupled with a 4-speed manual gearbox and a curb weight of 1469 kg (3238 lbs) had the same power to weight ratio as the Alpine A110 1600S, but could only reach a top speed od of 193 km/h (112 mph).

And considering both cars inertia moments, you can reach to the conclusion that an A110 1600S could make circles around a Mustang Mach 1 and make it bite the dust in a twisty mountain road.

Sometimes brute force is not the solution to all problems.

The A110 rally career is the stuff of legends. It started winning the Rally de Lions in 1963 driven by José Rosinski. But its glory days came between 1970 and 1974. In 1971 Alpine A110s finished in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place at the Monte Carlo Rally. In 1973 the upgraded A110 1800SC (with an amazing 180 hp engine) occupied the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th places in the World Rally Championship, defeating Porsche, Lancia and Ford.

The A110 1800SC became the car to beat until 1974 when the sudden arrival of the Lancia Stratos changed the whole concept of rally cars forever.

1974 also brought the international petrol crisis, created by the OPEC embargo on fuels. This event created chaos in the auto industry, and Alpine saw the fall of its annual sales from 1472 units in 1972 to 957 in 1974. The economic problems forced Alpine to be taken over by Renault, who transformed Alpine into part of the Renault Sports Division with the additional taking over of the Gordini tuning company.

The A110 final units were built in 1977, but the car’s golden years in rally racing were just a memory by then.

The next Alpine model was the A310, which was originally presented in 1971. The A310 had a more contemporary shape, but it just did not have the stylish flair of the A110. It had a wedge-shaped front and weird rearview. It was powered by a 1,6-liter 4 inline Gordini tuned engine with 125 hp. But due to safety regulations and a different market that asked for more comfort and equipment in cars, the A310 was larger, heavier, and basically underpowered.

To solve these problems, Renault created the A310 V6 which had the same PRV powertrain of the doomed DeLorean car. It was very expensive to build since it was made in an almost artisanal way, each car required 130 hours to be built (today the typical production time of a car is 17-18 hours in a highly robotized product line, it was about 50 to 60 hours in the middle 70s). So, Renault started to use standard parts of its other models to lower the car’s production costs, thus erasing all the heritage of Alpine from the car. After a not too successful career, the A310 faded into oblivion by 1985, after 9276 units had been built. For comparison, in 2017 Renault build 4.125.000 cars in 2017.

Alpine seemed to be a faint memory of the past until 2017, when the new Alpine A110S was presented at the Geneva International Motor Show.

The car’s body is a retro-styled homage to the original A110, but with an elegant mix of wedge shapes and soft curves. It looks like a classic A110, but it also looks contemporary. We could say that it is a timeless design.

The car is made all from aluminium, and it is powered by a 1,8-liter turbocharged, direct fuel injection, 4 valves per cylinder, 4 inline engine coupled with a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission made by the German gearbox specialist Getrag. The engine was designed by Renault-Nissan and specially tuned by Alpine. It produces 249 hp and enables the 1100 kg (2400 lbs) car to reach a top speed of 250 km/h (155 mph) and a 0-100 km/h (0-60 mph) time of 4,5 seconds. This car is a little gem not very well known except for sports car fanatics. The first production year delivered 1955 units, which were sold before built. There is a waiting list for newer units.

In 2019, Alpine launched the A110S, the high-performance version of this car. It has a retuned engine that delivers 290 hp, stiffer suspension, ceramic disc brakes and a larger turbocharger. It can go from 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 60 mph) in 4,4 seconds and it is electronically limited to a maximum speed of 250 km/h (155 mph). All these enhancements added just 10 kg to the car weight.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I really like the A110 concept: a lightweight sports car with a small engine highly tuned for performance and the ability to deliver a power to weight ratio that makes the car competitive with much more powerful vehicles.

I’d love to be driving one blue A110S and blow the dust off a 911 after stopping in front of a traffic light. And it also wouldn’t be able to keep the pace in a twisty road. 911s were once the rivals of the A110, but they have grown fat and heavy. In contrast, the A110 seems to have found the fountain of youth.

Sadly, Jean Rédélé died in 2007 when he was 85 years old, so he was not able to watch the return of his beloved brand.