Alpine A110 R review

This was Jean Rédélé’s masterpiece, the A110, a gorgeous two-seat, rear-engined coupé most frequently seen in blue and most often on the winner’s ramp of a rally or race. Rédélé was an amateur racer and son of a Dieppe-based Renault dealer. He formed Alpine in 1954 naming it after the eponymous mountains and their tortuous roads on which he won a Coupe des Alpes that year in his Renault 4CV. He built mainly Renault 4CV-based specials at first, then based on the Dauphine and eventually the R8 saloon, which provided the basis for the A110. But others were soon copying the idea, Alpine was over extended in motorsport and with the 1970s oil crisis looming, it lacked the finances to develop a replacement.

Renault bought Alpine in 1973 and turned Dieppe into a kind of motorsport skunk works, building race cars and in the 1980s and 1990s, Alpine’s A310, GTA, and A610 models. While they were well received, those later models struggled and by 1995, with the last A610, Renault deep-sixed Alpine, though the Dieppe plant continued to produce race cars and RenaultSport models.

All the same I wouldn’t have been alone in wondering about the wisdom of reviving Rédélé’s A110. We’ve read about the process on these pages from fellow contributor and its chief engineer David Twohig, but from outside at that time, Carlos Ghosn’s legion of mechanistic managers had starved RenaultSport of funds and resources, forcing it on a diet of mediocre components, meanwhile Alpine’s old Dieppe plant had been run down to almost a shadow operation.

Yet the plan worked (mainly) and this aluminium two-seater has captured hearts of drivers across Europe with last year’s total sales up 33 per cent to 3456. Sales are mainly concentrated in France where the stringent ‘Malus’ tax rises by each gram of CO2 produced, starting at €50 at 123g/km rising to €50,000 over 225g/km. You’ve really got to want a heavy and powerful sports car in La Belle France.

In the UK, where tax is more reasonable, the A110 R will cost £585 to tax for the first year, but Alpines remain a relatively rare sight on our roads with last year’s sales hitting just 288. Why? Well, Alpine is not well known and the Renault connection doesn’t go down that well against names such as Porsche. And they are expensive – even the standard model costs £51,990, with the more touring-based GT at £61,990, the medium-performance S at £61,990 and this, the ultimate R model, at a slightly boggling £89,990. And man, do they know how to chisel their way into your wallet on the options list. Even the satin-blue paint of the press cars is another £6000 (deep black is the only standard colour). There is a floor mat with an Alpine logo at £120, or how about £500 for a storage net behind the rear seats, or £200 for foldable door mirrors? It makes the additional £575 for the slap-up Focal stereo a bit of a bargain and makes the price of the cars we were driving as near as makes no difference £100,000.

What’s more this super pricey A110 has exactly the same 296bhp/251lb ft, 1.8-litre four-cylinder turbo engine and seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox as the 62 grand S model. This is partly the Malus tax, but also because the Alpine way is lightweight, efficient aerodynamics and optimised grip and handling rather than outright power. It does, however, leave you wondering – just what exactly are you getting for your money here?

First place to start is what you don’t get, namely the 34 additional kilos of the S model, meaning the claimed kerb weight is down to just 1082kg. Fact is, the A110 is at least three fat blokes lighter than pretty much any of its German counterparts. Most significant of the weight saving is the seats, carbon buckets from Sabelt along with quite serious six-point harnesses, which we’ll come back to. Then there are the all-carbon 18-inch wheels, which are made using three different construction techniques and glued together – don’t think about it…

The engine cover and rear glass window have been replaced with an opaque black carbon fibre panel, which means you can’t see out of the rear-view mirror so they’ve dumped that, too. The bonnet is now carbon fibre with air cheating nostrils and painted matt black, which of course gives another 10mph on the top speed in the same way that red brake calipers knock 10 metres off the stopping distance – in your head at least.

The standard car’s engine symposer also ended up on the workshop floor and now there’s a pipe to conduct the engine’s noise into the cabin – really, there is. They’ve also lost the top speed limiter so the A110 R maxes out at 177mph with 0-62mph in 3.9sec.

Enhanced grip is handled by the latest breed of Michelin Cup 2 tyres; 215/40 R18 at the front and 245/40 R18 at the rear and the stability system has been recalibrated to suit. The all-wishbone suspension is stepped up with gorgeous ZF Racing adjustable-height coilover dampers and the ride height is lowered by 10mm, with anti-roll bar stiffness up 10 per cent at the front and 25 per cent at the rear. The Brembo calipers and steel discs are unchanged from the optional anchors on the S model, but there’s serious amounts of cooling ducts around them giving a claimed 20 per cent more brake cooling at top speed.

There’s more downforce, too, thanks to the rear wing raised enough to have presented a serious threat to rear vision if there had been any through the back of the cabin. Alpine’s Formula 1 team conducted a parallel study to determine the best wing position, which turned out to be 18mm further back and 46mm higher up than that of the S. A lot of your money disappears into carbon fibre, which as well as the wheels, bonnet and seats also forms the side skirts, front and rear valances and the diffuser, which, along with lightweight redesigns for things like the roof and seat runners, means that not only is the car lighter, but the rear downforce is up by 29kg over the S model, but down by 30kg at the front to give a better balance.

The engine idles noisily and I’m beckoned forward…

We do this stuff quite a lot, particularly with anything with pretentions towards performance. These track tests all take different forms, but for the most part the process yields similar impressions. Weight is the main feeling as you turn the inevitably big and heavy road car into the apex of a variety of corners. You can almost feel the tyres bending and squishing as they take up the side strain, the tread yielding and sacrificing itself as tiny balls which creep out like advancing ants to the edges of the carcass before being flung out to the far reaches of the track.

There’s a physicality and violence when a hugely powerful engine roars its might, as its pistons breath and stop, and the valve gear flashes a tiny, high-speed dance turning an elixir of long-dead pickled sea creatures into electrifying movement, noise and heat.

None of this seems to apply to this remarkable car, which has an altogether lighter step on a circuit. It feels gossamer light and unbendingly strong as the four-pot growls and caterwauls its way up the rev counter. Turn it in and the body tilts only slightly and the tyres are quite amazing, gripping with scarce sense of strain or wear, almost as if this little coupé could carry on doing this long after you’d tired of the sensation – and that would take a very long time.

The A110 R doesn’t dance like the standard car, nor does it do feedback in the same way, but it’s still pure class in the way it addresses the head-spinning dips and crests of this grand old circuit, and while it’s possible to overestimate its very-capable limits, you’ve got to be travelling very fast indeed and even then, there’s a little gap to allow you to just about sort it out. So too, the brakes (or perhaps their cooling), with a pedal which stayed strong and firm throughout and stopping that was unfading despite repeatedly standing the car on its nose at the end of the long straight. And when I got back, I paused to look at the tyres, which looked far less assaulted and battered than they had any right to after such treatment.

Once my heart had slowed, I was directed out to a row of cars prepared for a two-hour road circuit on some of the mountain roads surrounding the Spanish capital. They certainly cut a dash with their contrasting black wings and diffusers and that satin blue looks reassuringly expensive, which of course it is.

The interior feels equally exotic with those Sabelt seats dominating the experience. Their embrace is as tight as that of Spiderwoman, but it feels as if you are sitting too high. The standard car’s seats with their gorgeous quilted leather sides are more than supportive enough. There’s Alcantara everywhere, the steering wheel, with its 12 o’clock red stripe, the dashboard, the fascia, the door cards with their contrasting red pull shuts, but it all feels performative and perfunctory, since while it appeals to a sort of wealthy boy-racer brigade, none of it makes the car go any faster round corners and it sends out a certain sort of aggression which not everyone feels is appropriate for a road car.

Pulling out from the circuit, onto the speed bumps of the housing estate which occupies one of the boundaries of Jarama, you realise there’s still enough ground clearance not to have to approach them diagonally, but those Michelins don’t take any prisoners, telling you the intimate details of every road seam and bump they encounter. My guess is the A110 R’s ride is going to be borderline unacceptable on UK black top.

Despite the Alcantara, this car is very gentleman’s racer in inspiration, with a functioning air conditioning unit, Focal stereo, fuel consumption readout and so on. And while you eventually get used to not having a rear-view mirror, it’s a pain and traffic police are going to just love this car.

On crowded and rutted A-roads the suspension feels quite jinky, you are thrown up against the belts and on occasions it can be quite difficult to catch your breath. This doesn’t bode well.

Yet once the roads clear, and speeds increase, those Michelin gumballs ease off a bit. The body stops crashing about and you can get on and drive. While there’s a bit of an over-centre feeling as you turn in, my goodness this car’s got some grip. If you can see the exit, you can corner hard enough to have brains leaking from your ears and still be nowhere near the limit. I started to enjoy myself rather a lot, standing on the brakes, turning in and allowing the boost to waft through the corner and onto the next, but the astonishing limits of the tyres means you are driving on trust rather than an innate sense of what you’ve got left. I saw signs for Guadalajara but as Steely Dan sang on My Old School ‘Guadalajara won’t do’ – I could have happily driven this car back to Blighty.

Three questions, however. First, would you want more power? Well, yes and no, and here we enter the dark area of the strength of that transmission. Probably not, there’s sufficient as it is and the way that little mill digs deep means you don’t have to be a racing driver to get the best out of it. Second, have they narrowed the very wide gap between playing about and visiting the scenery, which characterises the standard car, just a little too much? Um, no, but you need your wits about you and not a little skill if you are planning on exploiting those Michelins to the max. And third, is it anywhere near worth the extra money?

Difficult to answer this one because this seems to be the version of the A110 that would result if you gave it to a racing driver who’d climb out and demand more grip, more downforce, less weight and better brakes (as well as more power). Yet the whole ethos of the A110 seems to be something more than racetrack refugee. Here’s a little car in which you could take a significant other to the opera without significant demands on either your coiffeur or dress and still look, well, cool. With its all-too visible carbon fibre, lowered stance, lairy exhaust and that Richard Grant rear wing, this version is a bit too obvious, a fact that even the Alpine engineers acknowledge.

And lastly, could you have as much fun in the standard car? Come on, we’ve all answered more difficult questions than that, and that’s without walking out of the showroom with a spare 40 grand in our pockets…