Part of what gave Alpine and its much-loved A110 street cred was how dominant the car was in rallying. It was small and lightweight, but it beat out pretty much everybody anyway. The new A110 brings that legacy to modern light with the Alpine A110 Rally.
Signatech and Alpine are working together to try and get an FIA R-GT factory rally homologation so they can deliver a rally version of the A110 to customers early next year during the competition debut, according to a press release.
The A110 Rally has the lightweight aluminum chassis of the A110 GT4 and Cup versions, as well as three-way hydraulic suspension, Brembo brakes, a six-point harness system, Sabelt bucket seats, Bosch ABS system, adjustable traction control and an FIA-homologated roll cage.
The car has a sequential six-speed gearbox and a limited-slip differential. The 1.8-liter, inline-four engine has been worked over to produce over 300 horsepower.
It sounds like a highly tuned, highly pissed-off unit, which is exactly what an A110 rally car should have. See, the original A110 rally car had a 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine that made 155 horsepower. But it also only weighed about 1,500 pounds, which made it nimble and agile enough to dominate its late ‘60s/early ‘70s era.
The Alpine A110 Rally (the new one) will cost €150,000 (about $166,000), subject to homologation of the car.
A lot of oddball rear-wheel-drive sports cars have run in the R-GT class, though this year the only contenders in the official R-GT cup have been a few Fiat 124 Abarths and a Porsche 997 GT3. Lotus was getting in on R-GT for a hot minute, as was an old Aston Martin V8 Vantage, and Porsche tested a Cayman GT4 rally car, but only ran it as a demo in front of Rally Germany. Even Jaguar’s built at F-Type rally car, but that sadly was for tribute purposes, not actual racing.
Alpine, thankfully, seems to have complete intention to get you to buy and compete in its car.
