Alpine A110 review: Renault reinvents a classic sports car

Everything works like a driving symphony, which can pitch to a crescendo and back again at your slightest signals

The revived French motor is hardly an austerity buy, but for simple sporty pleasure it’s a modest package (Photography by Alpine)

There lots of things to say about the Alpine A110 sports car. The most obvious, I hope you can see for yourself, it is a very striking car, in a slightly froggy sort of way. Well, it is made by Renault I suppose, who have revived the long-dormant Alpine badge for this mid-engined intervention into the sports car market. Apologies for the auto-racism.

Like the Audi and Porsche models it is supposed to take on, you wouldn’t exactly call it pretty, or beautiful, but it certainly has something.

Especially good suspension, since you ask – double wishbone all round, which is a sophisticated and expensive sort of set up. A sense of occasion, certainly, too.

(Alpine)

The cabin is a breath-taking place to be in, almost literally. By which I mean that’s how I reacted when I opened the door, expecting some knock-up form the Renault parts bin. The designers have been allowed to get to work here.

Dominated by a slim floating centre console, it is snug, alcantara and leather clad, with some nifty quilted pads in the door panels. In blue. Everything is blue, which, of course, is the French national sporting colour – for football teams as well as racing cars.

Anyway, you can get the Alpine in other shades, but it works well in patriotic French blue. You get French flag motifs stuck on it too. Maybe if you don’t like Brexit much it can be the most enjoyable way of protesting leaving the EU.

(Alpine)

More to the point, it goes. Incredibly well. Mainly because it is about as light as it can be – virtually all aluminium, with a well-chosen engine unit that is powerful enough without being too big and heavy itself. Everything works like a driving symphony, which can pitch to a crescendo and back again at your slightest signals. The throttle and auto box are extremely responsive, and they invite you, as few cars do, to use the paddle shifts that are so often fitted and so often ignored on production cars.

The 1.8 litre engine is a tuned and improved standard Renault unit, and makes a delicious row, and all the more so with the big red “sport” button.

(Alpine)

Additional aural thrills come from the whoosh of the turbo-charging from behind your ears as you press on country roads. Stopping is excellent, especially with the optional Brembo brakes, handling near perfect, an exhilarating ride, and one that lets you emerge without feeling as though you’ve had your bones shaken.

It’s not practical, really, desirable as it may be. With the engine, as is proper, placed midways, there is a choice of small boot at the front and small boot at the back, which don’t quite add up to one big boot. Indoors there are just the two seats.

It’s low slung, again for low centre of gravity and good road holding and balance. You can’t see out of the back, thanks to its high waist, but there’s a parking camera and sensors to take care of that.

The spec

Alpine A110 Premiere Edition

Price: £51,805
Engine capacity: 1.8-litre petrol; 4-cylinder; 7-speed dual clutch auto
Power output (bhp): 248 at 6,000rpm
Top speed (mph): 155 (limited)​​​
0-60mph (seconds): 4.5
Fuel economy (mpg): 46​​​
CO2 emissions (g/km): 138

Renault are proud of their partnership with focal for in-car entertainment, but it does have to compete with the mechanical music too. Which is a good thing? Yes, it is a good thing.

At around £50,000 the Alpine A110 is hardly an austerity buy. I don’t suppose Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn would ever have one (though Sir Vince Cable seems to have racier instincts). Yet, given that, this exotic Renault Alpine is perfectly good value against the likes of the Porsche Cayman or Audi TT, but, for simple sporty pleasure in a (relatively) modest package I’d suggest the Subaru BRZ/Toyota GT86, which can be yours for about half the rice. True, they lack the performance and the specialness of an Alpine – they don’t go much faster than a mid-range Fiesta – but, with boxer engines and well-tuned chassis, they could be almost as much fun. Maybe Alpine will bring us a new car for a more affordable price in due course.

(Alpine)

Renault, as a brand, is having a bit of hard time of it, especially in the UK, where it has had to slim down the model range and stopped selling the likes of the Espace people carrier, once a common sight on our roads. Its sales are, not being too polite, stagnant, and only compensated for by the burgeoning success of its Dacia brand, the budget vehicles made with much Renault technology and componentry in Romania.

Renault’s other subsidiaries seem to have mixed fortunes – Lada in Russia booming, and Samsung in South Korea less so.

The partnership with Nissan and Mitsubishi also promise much for future technologies – electric cars and plug-in hybrids, and SUV expertise. But Groupe Renault lacks a prestige make to boast about, and this reborn Alpine is their attempt to plug the gap.

It is a small start, but dramatic enough and, on this basis, Alpine deserves to succeed as that rarest of things – a revived make of automobile.