First official pictures of new Alpine A110

By RELAXNEWS | 3 March 2017


PARIS: After months and months of teasing and of publishing carefully cropped or camouflaged images, Renault has finally published the first official pictures of the long-gestating Alpine sportscar - the Alpine A110.

Set to do battle against the Porsche Cayman and the Alfa Romeo C4 in the fight for keen drivers' attention, the new car's final specifications are still unknown -- Renault is keeping them under wraps until the first press day of this year's Geneva motor show on March 7.

However, we do know that the new car will come with rear-wheel drive, a mid-mounted engine and potential 50:50 weight distribution over its two axles. The car will also make the most of latest-generation active aerodynamics including a flat floor and rear diffuser to maximise downforce at higher speeds.

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It's also going to be much lighter than any of its direct rivals thanks to prodigious use of aluminum and composite materials -- even the chairs, though wrapped in leather, only tip the scales at 13.1kg each.

All of which suggests that the car's engine won't be all that potent, but that because the car is potentially lighter than even a top spec Cayman, it won't need to output more than 250-300hp.

As for aesthetics, the car is very much a modern interpretation of the iconic original Alpine A110 from the 1960s when the marque was well and truly in its ascendancy.

Founded in 1955 as a company specialising in racing engines, Alpine had huge success on the road and around the track and subsequently became part of Renault where the two firms combined their experts for some eclectic and very exciting road cars. However the last car carrying an Alpine badge rolled off the production line back in 1995.

The marque was wound down and despite serval attempts in recent years to bring it back to life, the new A110 will be the first genuinely new Alpine for some 22 years when it makes its Geneva debut.


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