Why Supercar Collectors Are Buying Alpine A110s

Affordable price, modest horsepower and glorified Renault associations aren't putting high-rolling buyers off the Alpine - here's why
Why Supercar Collectors Are Buying Alpine A110s

You have a Ferrari 250 GTO or Singer-reimagined-Porsche in the garage. Among others. And yet there’s something about a £50,000, Megane-engined Alpine that means you have to have one, even if you wouldn’t usually be seen dead in a Renault dealership.

Word on the street has it this is exactly what’s happening. I couldn’t see such people doing the same for a Porsche 718 Cayman. They might just have done it for an Alfa Romeo 4C. And driven it once before tucking it away at the back of the garage to sit under a lingering blanket of unfulfilled expectation. But an Alpine is the kind of thing supercar owners want to buy. Be seen in. And drive, whether it’s to the shops or to the ‘Ring.

How come? After 2000 miles in one I think I might have a sense.

Why Supercar Collectors Are Buying Alpine A110s

Now, I don’t have the luxury of a 250 GTO to hand. But I have been lucky enough to spend time in some pretty tasty cars and have a sense of both the joy and frustration to be had in them. You’ll have heard variations on this story before, but it basically comes down to the growing disparity between the performance of even junior-league supercars and what can be enjoyed on the road and/or by average drivers. As such I think Renault may have timed Alpine’s revival to perfection.

But why is the Alpine winning hearts and minds while the Cayman, 4C and Lotus Elise and Exige are already there, share similarly emotive brand heritage and cost similar money? There must be something about this car, some sort of… what’s the French phrase again… it’ll come to me, I’m sure.

Why Supercar Collectors Are Buying Alpine A110s

The looks play a part, though I’m not convinced going full retro is necessarily the best idea. Heritage? The original A110 Berlinette is a classic icon but, beyond that, I’m not sure Alpine resonates with anyone beyond car world and, outside France, the brand has traditionally been a nearly-man, even when compared with Lotus. What do I know, though? People seem to love it and it turns heads like something costing three times as much, while lacking the ‘compensating, much?’ emotional baggage of a Ferrari.

Performance? Maybe. 250bhp and 0-62 in 4.5 seconds are convincing enough. Especially when paired with a kerbweight 300kg less than the Megane Renault Sport with which it shares an engine. But I think the one thing most people will be stunned by when they have a go in the Alpine is ride quality. I know, since when was that a deciding factor when buying a mid-engined sports car?

Why Supercar Collectors Are Buying Alpine A110s

But the way Renault has turned the Alpine’s lightness into a tangible benefit, rather than just a spec sheet boast, is a real coup. Just as Lotus has made its cars stiffer and less… Lotus-like, so Alpine has proven the benefits of a light structure, relatively small wheels and a fixation with saving weight where it counts. Check out those gorgeous Brembos if you were in any doubt - combining the parking brake into the caliper saves 2.5kg of unsprung weight alone.

Things like this mean it just flows over broken roads, whether you’re on the Col de l’Iseran or Acton High Street. This shouldn’t be a revelation. But we’ve got so used to a marketing interpretation of ‘sporty’ suspension, big wheels and low-profile tyres we’ve kind of forgotten how much this matters. Yes Cayman, looking at you on your optional 20s…

Why Supercar Collectors Are Buying Alpine A110s

And because it’s comfy and on relatively small rubber it doesn’t need tons of sound-deadening to make it refined on a run. The mountain passes I drove the A110 over were epic. But so was the 600-mile drive each way to get there, and most of that was on motorways. Even in fixed Sabelt bucket seats the Alpine was quiet and comfy. And sipped fuel at pretty much bang on the claimed 46.3mpg combined average.

Nit pickers will sneer at the parts-bin Renault bits and some of the cheaper plastics in the cabin. But where it matters Renault has done just enough to make the Alpine feel special inside and the parts you interact with - steering wheel, pedals, passenger kickplate, seats and the rest - are all nice enough. And if anyone questions that you have the ‘because lightness’ get-out-of-jail free card, it’s worth bearing in mind a comparable 718 Cayman PDK weighs a quarter of a tonne more.

Why Supercar Collectors Are Buying Alpine A110s

The best thing about the Alpine, though? That you can enjoy all this, drive in a fashion that makes it feel like you’re making decent progress, dabble in the odd slither out of a hairpin and have a right hoot. And whenever you look at the speedo you think “oh, is that all?” Which makes it sound like I’m making excuses for the lack of pants-on-fire performance. I’m not. The masterstroke is making that the least important thing in the whole driving experience.

And, whether you’re coming from an Audi TT or a 250 GTO, that’s what makes the Alpine such a breath of fresh air and worthy of sharing garage space with any supercar. What was that French phrase I was after that sums it all up? That was it! Je ne sais quoi! Don’t bother looking it up in Google translate – the explanation is right here in front of you.

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Comments

MeBoosta

Nice article, keep it up!

10/07/2018 - 08:49 |
2 | 0
☆★THEBOOSTEDBRIT★☆

Because they’re goddamn excellent. Enough said

10/07/2018 - 09:01 |
40 | 0

I wouldn’t know thanks to us in the U.S.A. this car is yet another forbidden fruit far sweeter than much of our available crop. The minute 25 years passes I want to import one of these.

10/08/2018 - 17:17 |
6 | 0
TheMindGarage

I’m super glad that this car still exists. I’m not a fan of the rather mundane engine (would rather see something N/A and high-revving a la F20C), but if a car can be so highly praised even with an “ordinary” engine, that tells you a lot about the rest of the car. I sure hope this doesn’t appreciate too much because I want to have a chance of affording one in the future…

10/07/2018 - 09:09 |
22 | 0

Other examples would be the Ariel atom and the lotus Evora

It’s not only about the engine.

It’s about the damn driving dynamics

10/07/2018 - 09:47 |
1 | 1

The thing is that they needed to develop a sports car for cheap, and with the engine they had this was the case.
But I understand that if they swaped for an NA 2.0 renault engine it would be great too.
Also there is a 300hp version coming so a bit more power is incoming.

10/07/2018 - 12:35 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

Love that car. Never thought I’d say it about a french car, but I wish we had in the states.

10/07/2018 - 10:54 |
4 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

You can get the old one. Or an old Renault 5 Turbo 2

10/07/2018 - 12:37 |
2 | 0
Anonymous

Dan, this as superbly written, it has completely changed my perception of the car!

10/07/2018 - 12:25 |
3 | 0
Anonymous

To be fair, I have seen people with a lot of cash drive Renault RS cars.

Why?
Idk, maybe because they are inconspicuous sport cars that can drive around everyday, maybe because they are fast for the money or because they really like them.

One thing I can say is that the best experience driving/passenger I had was in one of them

10/07/2018 - 12:38 |
5 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

I’d assume that they drive them because they offer similar driving experience to some of the cars in their collection without costing tons of money in depreciation every time they go out for a drive

10/08/2018 - 07:19 |
2 | 0
HAYABUSA

Je ne sais quoi.

10/07/2018 - 13:13 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Think they got everything right with this car that the Alfa 4C got wrong.

10/07/2018 - 15:02 |
2 | 0
RWB Dude

I wish they would put this in Forza

10/07/2018 - 16:36 |
2 | 0
LukaTheGarlic

TL;DR: “Je ne sais quoi” roughly translates to “paid advert”.

Sorry to start the comment with an agitated and misleading sentence, but I cannot concur to that written in the header (“Affordable price, modest horsepower and glorified Renault associations aren’t putting high-rolling buyers off the Alpine - here’s why”)

We have understood Alpine rebooting A110 was to go back to the roots of passion that accompanied the original A110.

I honestly think they made a good job creating a modern lightweight coupe in the days where everyone screams for more extras to rectify the really abnormal prices of the recent cars/models.

But:
I cannot believe they spent so much attention (time, money, r&d) into a car which should be a homage of the original and not give it at least an option (when not already completely abandoning it during infantile stage) of infotainment delete, physical needle-pointers in the tacho and manual gearbox.

The car should have been created with solely B-road driving in mind where a manual gearbox is simply a must. No one should even try arguing with that!

But car journalists have become softies with little to no criticism, especially when writing/filming about a bit more exotic cars than your usual everyday driver.

If the high-rolling buyers are buying Alpine today because of the reasons stated in the article, they would also be eager to buy it without loudspeakers, glossy plastics, screens with possibility to show obsolete data.

Rethorically: why did they even bother to incoroporate the parking brake into existing caliper only to put that weight back with infotainment system?

In the end, yes, when you are writing about A110, it seems like it is a paid advert. Or a part of an agreement to even be able to “test” the A110.

I like the car. I would like to drive it and if I like it, buy it. But I am sure I would not like it nearly as much with automatic gearbox as I would have with manual gearbox.

10/07/2018 - 17:21 |
1 | 2

The lack of a manual gearbox is for weight reduction and placement

10/08/2018 - 06:59 |
0 | 0

The key here is that it was unsprung weight. Reducing unsprung weight improves ride quality directly, which is what the entire paragraph was about.

I disagree that you need to go to extremes such as removing ICE, sound deadening etc. to claim they made a considerable effort to save weight.

10/08/2018 - 14:30 |
0 | 0

You’re right, the Alpine has had pretty much unequivocal positive reviews … but there is a reason for that! And I share your disappointment about the lack of a manual option but, as others have pointed out, there are technical and market reasons for the path taken. I imagine they’ll have been looking at the fact c. 85% of Caymans are PDK (off the top of my head - it’s in that order) against the costs of offering it and the decision will have been an easy one. Doesn’t make it ‘right’ but there we go.

And to defend the context of this story it wasn’t a review, per se. More a broader opinion piece. I’ve done a more detailed video review on my own channel here that does address this point and more detailed comparisons with Cayman, 4C, etc and you can see that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV59jGRw1Qk

Hope that offers some balance. And, for what it’s worth, I did question whether the retro styling is really all that!

10/09/2018 - 17:06 |
0 | 0