Alpine has returned, updating the formula of its classic rally-winning sports car for the modern world, and teaching some new lessons for competitors from Alfa Romeo and Porsche.
We’ve been spoiled lately with the charmingly complicated Alfa Romeo 4C, the clinical and dialed-in McLarens, and a string of truly great Porsche Caymans. For Alpine to return now, where the performance car market is possibly at the best place its been in decades, is a bold move, but Alpine has come prepared.
Carfection’s Henry Catchpole noted the Alpine 110 as a watershed moment for performance cars in his latest review:
The Alpine 110 does something its competitors have strayed away from, as Henry points, as most companies are focused on objective performance metrics in a constant battle of oneupmanship. The Alpine, with its 250 horsepower, doesn’t follow.
Instead, the Alpine offers a straightforward, enjoyable experience, focused on driver inputs without pushing them to a level of exhaustion. An interesting note revealed in the video is that the DCT transmission in the Alpine, according to the comany, comes out overall lighter than trying to engineer a manual transmission.
The 110 is about comfortable performance. It’s focused less on pushing an engineering limit and more on offering less weight, less complexity, less ego. Unfortunately I’m American, and it isn’t sold here, but I’m sure the Europeans will love it.