Going home

Slipping aboard, the interior feels old and the driving position strange despite the improbable amounts of available legroom. What’s odd is that I don’t remember this from the myriad A110s I’ve driven before with standard fore/aft sliding buckets. I felt I was tipping forward and in dire need of an adjustable backrest. But then I remembered the bolts that secure the seat to the runners and the varying holes that with no more than a Torx key and some fiddling would indeed allow the seat to be adjusted. But, I realised only when I’d got two of the four undone, they allow only for height rather than tilt adjustment. Why not just drill new holes to provide both? I was sorely tempted.

But I was all forgiveness before I was even off the drive. I think a point too often missed with this car, but key to its appeal, is that its exceptionally low weight is just one reason we all fell over one another to praise it when it came out. Another is where that weight is, concentrated almost entirely within a short wheelbase (55mm shorter than a Boxster’s), and kept off the nose. It is a packaging masterpiece, but you only have to listen to how quickly the cooling fan kicks in and how long after you’ve parked up it keeps blowing (longer than any other car in my experience) to suspect it’s right up against its thermal limit in that tiny engine bay.

The result however is a car that feels even lighter than it is. Put it like this: on the scales it comes in at over double the weight of my crossflow Caterham and no way does it feel anything like that, presumably because it doesn’t have a large lump of iron parked in its nose.

I’d like to say I took the scenic route to the tunnel and refrain from doing so only because it’s not true. I was in a hurry to beat the traffic on the morning after a bank holiday weekend, so scooted down the M4, around the M25, M26 and M20.

But I was struck all over again by the hardships the A110 imposes upon you as a price extracted for being able to conduct such an absurdly light car. Because there aren’t any. Being strictly honest, I’d have liked the ride to be better, but that’s because the only car available from the Alpine press office was an A110 S. If you’re tempted to go for one of these over a standard car, I urge you not to bother: there’s no more power until you get right up the top of the rev range and the deterioration in the usually sublime ride quality is just not worth it. If you want the best of both worlds – soft springs and more power – get a GT. Otherwise I sat there, warm and comfortable in that unfathomably spacious interior, cruise control on, Waze guiding me on the standard post-facelift CarPlay. I even found space for my tea and water bottle in the cubby hole between the seats. It was stable in the strong crosswinds and still did 38mpg despite me going as fast as I dared, and the drag of the water on the roads.

And when I got to the train, there was none of that inching down each carriage, just waiting for that noisome metal on metal sound as your prized alloys come off decidedly second best in their fight with a locomotive. It’s so slender you can just scoot along without a second thought.

By rights this car should already have been put out to pasture. Indeed I understand the only reason it remains in production is because Alpines are built in such limited numbers they benefit from exemptions in the most recent crash regulations. I hear also that one reason they’re now selling so (relatively) well is that people are beginning to think they might make a decent long-term investment prospect. Despite the praise, not many more than 1200 A110s have been sold in the UK – which equates to around 170 per year for the seven years it’s been on sale here. For comparison’s sake, Porsche has sold over 50 per cent more of just the GT4 versions of the Cayman.

The weather had improved by the time I got to the tunnel, but upon disembarkation I was greeted by graphite skies and steady rain. In most normal mid-engined two-seaters that would be sign enough that you should just accept the Fates were not smiling upon you today and gently tootle down the autoroute, accepting the occasional dunking from any camion you might pass. But even by such niche standards, this is no normal car.

Perhaps the A110’s least celebrated, but most impressive talents come when the conditions are against you. Because however good these things are in the dry, they are befuddlingly brilliant in the wet. Well do I remember a track day at Thruxton to which I turned up in an early left-hook prototype and wondering how it would get on amid all the 911 GT3s, hot Ferraris and suchlike that populated the paddock. Despite having less than 250bhp to my name – this being a standard A110, not a single car came past all day. Drivers of other cars came up to me to congratulate me on my otherworldly talent, all of which I naturally accepted with the good grace not to mention I had almost nothing to do with it.

And now, at lesser speeds and in a different environment as I picked my way from village to village, the same demonstration was laid on for me. Who needs four-wheel drive when you have a car this light, suspension this good and an apparently bog standard Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyre that works this well? Traction is stunning, apex speed ridiculous and balance otherworldly. Actually those Pilots are purpose built for this car and suit it to perfection; what would outpace it point-to-point in these conditions? An unusually well driven 911 Turbo S perhaps, but that’s hardly the point. What would keep up and offer that much pure driving pleasure in a form you can still drive every day? Essentially nothing.

I remember one corner, arcing up and to the right, me deliberately needling the rear axle with my right foot. At first there was the smallest touch of understeer, the kind you notice but feel no need to correct because, with a car this compact, there’s always space to spare. Then I felt the front find grip as the back lost it, as if one end of the car had simply stolen it from the other. On another day, or maybe just a few years back, it would have been all the encouragement I needed to jab the throttle and ride out the slide to come because I know how playful and easily controlled they are in that condition; but it had been an early start, I was still dozens of miles from Dieppe and I was more keen on making progress than skidding about. So I just checked what I’d blush even to call a slide – a fractional reduction in lock, that’s all, and all it needed. Would a passenger have even noticed? Perhaps, just from the initial yaw, but they’d have been needing to watch my hands very carefully to spot me doing anything about it.

And as I exited and powered up the road, I thought about that suspension again. If this had been a more softly sprung GT or Pure A110, the simple fact is they’d have been better, even than this – not that that seemed possible at the time.

I arrived in Dieppe, picked my way easily through its crowded streets, briefly parked it outside the factory then sliced it through the narrow entrance of the hotel’s underground car park with barely a second thought – the A110’s dimensions proving the gift that will not stop giving.

And then, as I sat there, listening to it cool down, I became somewhat pensive. How can a car this capable, this much fun, this frugal both with the material it contains and those it consumes have no relevance in the modern world? It seemed bizarre, perverse even.

Twenty four hours later I was back on board and heading home, having seen the A390 unveiled and scooped the details of both the next A110 and the Alpine supercar to follow. And it seemed no less perverse or bizarre then either.

In my gut I have this conviction that today is the outlier, and that in time cars like this will return, and maybe the next A110 will provide the first evidence of that. Because ultimately if we are to enjoy our motoring while also doing as little damage to the planet as possible, compact, light cars are not just an answer, they are the only answer. I just hope I’m still around to see it.

Photography by Luc Lacey