Retro? No go! PH Blog

There's a lot to like about the new Alpine Vision, so why make it look like an old one?

First of all, let me say I am genuinely excited by the return of Alpine and the Vision concept's foretaste of what's in store for the production car due at the end of the year. What we have here is 80 per cent of the way to the real thing, we're told.

Evocation or imitation?

I'm also inspired by another mainstream manufacturer embracing weight saving, simplicity and realistic performance. Plus the fact Alpine has gone to the bother of developing an entirely new mid-engined, rear-driven platform to achieve it. All of this is good stuff.

Why the need to burden it with retro styling though?

The fixation with retro is, to me, the mock Tudoring of car design. Or the Hollywood craze for re-making old films, like the forthcoming rehash of Point Break. The originals in all these cases were products of their time and we love them for that. Let them be. By all means draw from them as inspiration. Fill your new projects with respectful and knowing references of their influence. But have we really run out of ideas on how to design houses, come up with exciting film scripts or make cars look cool? I seriously hope not!

Before I get too worked up let's hear the case for the defence. Newly appointed worldwide marketing boss for Alpine, Michael van der Sande, says the Vision concept isn't retro. While launching it to the world surrounded by 80-odd A110s on the Monaco quayside. "It's not a slave to the A110, it picks up the best," he told me. "Is the Porsche 911 retro? I don't think so - it picks up the cues from cars from the past, but it is not retro."

Influence of A610 noticeable by its absence

Ebullient designer Antony Villain agrees. "We had to pick up the story as if it had never stopped," he said at the event. "It was not a demonstration of styling or doing something trendy, we hope within 20 years people will say this is a classic Alpine."

Fair points both. But they're not picking up the story as if it had never stopped - if Villain had we'd have a modern interpretation of the A610, officially the last Alpine before the brand's rebirth. The A110 is the iconic Alpine. But the 70s A310 and 80s GTA, if not as successful, were equally distinctive. And very, very French. Villain seems a talented and enthusiastic chap and is clearly doing what he's told. I'd love to see what he'd have come up with had his design influence been allowed to stretch further than the Berlinette.

Generally speaking this inability to break with the past seems a quirk of Western hemisphere corporate thinking too. Mazda's fourth-gen MX-5 is a brave reinvention of the original's values, executed with freshness and modernity. The Fiat 124 Spider based on the same underpinnings? A lazy pastiche of former glories in comparison. Look at the Nissan GT-R too; it's clearly faithful to the design heritage of its predecessors. But not chained to them and willing to mix in modern influences like anime and gaming to forge its own legend.

And what on earth will happen with this?

Meanwhile we get new Mustangs that look like old Mustangs, modern Minis that look like classic ones (OK, they're stretching that one to the absolute limit) and a continuing craze for butchering nice old 911s to make them look a bit like newer ones. Credit to former Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann for holding out against demand for the Miura rehash - will new man Domenicali be able to resist?

The key one for me in this will be what Land Rover decides to do with its eventual Defender replacement. If it's truly honest to the original it won't necessarily look like it. It'll be strictly functional, its style dictated by the materials and construction methods used to build it as the first one was back in the day. If it sticks true to this yet looks nothing like the old Defender it'll be more true to Land Rover values than any retro rehash. Can they resist the temptation though?

I hope they can.

Dan