RE: Inside story: the Alpine-Caterham

[ChrisPap]

auyt said:

Great article Keep the info comming the concept is one to watch but...

"£30K, weigh around 1,000kg, use a version of the new Clio 200’s 1.6-litre turbo engine with 200hp-plus and be pitched as both purist and usable."

YAWN..........

Try
"£30K, weigh sub 1,000kg, use a version of Quad Cam V6 engine with 250hp-plus and be pitched as both purist and usable." gets my attention.

+1

On the other hand, TVR, Straight 6, 350hp, Manual RWD, 1059kg, £14-19,000.
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/t...

TVR, Straight 6, 350hp, Manual RWD, 1130kg, £20-33,000
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/t...

[stephendell]

Kolbenkopp said:

Cayman starts at 52.527,00 € in France. Really hope they get the price for the Alpine near 30k. I wouldn't mind lots of off the shelf parts in it as long as it drives right. I'm also in the "pick 2" camp. Noway this will be like the specs and at that price. Bit more realistic than the 4C, but still...

Thanks for the info! So the Alpine doesn't have to try too hard in France to be cheaper than a Cayman then which is closer to £45K GBP equivalent over there.

[otolith]

J-P said:

Once you're in, the drive is great in terms of ride / handling balance but the gearchange is pretty grim and it's a pretty dull place to sit (sublime to drive though).

I rather like the Elise interior and the gearbox on the Toyota engined cars is fine. Most sportscars these days seem to have interiors modelled on a well optioned 3-series - utterly boring.

[J-P]

otolith said:

J-P said:

Once you're in, the drive is great in terms of ride / handling balance but the gearchange is pretty grim and it's a pretty dull place to sit (sublime to drive though).

I rather like the Elise interior and the gearbox on the Toyota engined cars is fine. Most sportscars these days seem to have interiors modelled on a well optioned 3-series - utterly boring.

Well it would be boring if we were all the same. Gear change in the Toyota engined cars is better but still not that great IMHO.

[spameister]

J-P said:

spameister said:

J-P said:

And in the case of the Toyobaru - it's simply too slow for me for the money,

fixed

Performance per £ is poor. I know it's about driving and handling and there's a lot of fun to be had keeping the momentum up but a 0-62MPH time of 7.6s was fast in the 80's and 90's and is pretty pedestrian today, especially for a sportscar. A BMW 320d is quicker! And you won't have to work as hard to access its performance (which could be a bad thing when you're in the mood but for normal road drives is likely yo be a pain). On a track day, nearly everything would overtake you on the straights too, which is really frustrating if you're much faster in the corners. Lovely cars but need more power!

1st point. "Performance per £ is poor." That depends where you live. New Cayman in the U.K. approx GBP 39,694.00 incl. VAT according to Porsche U.K. website. Same car in Australia approx GBP 84,000. Lotus has similar ratio of prices. I think the 86/BRZ is great value here.
2nd point. The only objective thing you have said is "A BMW 320d is quicker!"
The rest is subjective. What you consider "work" I consider fun. On the road I think it is plenty fast enough and for me it is fast enough on track as well.
3rd point. It is an inanimate object. It doesn't need more power; you want more power.

[J-P]

spameister said:

J-P said:

spameister said:

J-P said:

And in the case of the Toyobaru - it's simply too slow for me for the money,

fixed

Performance per £ is poor. I know it's about driving and handling and there's a lot of fun to be had keeping the momentum up but a 0-62MPH time of 7.6s was fast in the 80's and 90's and is pretty pedestrian today, especially for a sportscar. A BMW 320d is quicker! And you won't have to work as hard to access its performance (which could be a bad thing when you're in the mood but for normal road drives is likely yo be a pain). On a track day, nearly everything would overtake you on the straights too, which is really frustrating if you're much faster in the corners. Lovely cars but need more power!

1st point. "Performance per £ is poor." That depends where you live. New Cayman in the U.K. approx GBP 39,694.00 incl. VAT according to Porsche U.K. website. Same car in Australia approx GBP 84,000. Lotus has similar ratio of prices. I think the 86/BRZ is great value here.
2nd point. The only objective thing you have said is "A BMW 320d is quicker!"
The rest is subjective. What you consider "work" I consider fun. On the road I think it is plenty fast enough and for me it is fast enough on track as well.
3rd point. It is an inanimate object. It doesn't need more power; you want more power.

1. Fair enough


2. I was using the BMW example to illustrate a point. The acceleration time is also a fact and in this day and age warm hatches can achieve that pace. I made the point that "work" could be fun, if you're in the mood. And if it's fast enough for you then that's great. I was referring to my perception of what it competes with in the market. As in my first post a Focus ST is quite a lot quicker and in the UK a lot cheaper too.

I've driven slower but great handling cars on track days. If it's a reasonably quiet day, I'd agree it's fine but on a busy day, the lack of straight line pace just irritates, as you just end up getting held up in the corners. Don't know what track days are like in Oz, so perhaps it's less of an issue.


3. I don't actually want a Toyobaru, so I'm not bothered about how much power it has. For me to look at it as a prospective purchase it would need to have more power but I'd still rather have my car (by quite a massive margin). In the UK a 135i can be had for less than £30k, I'd rather have one of those for the wedge.

[172]

Here's an idea to keep costs down they could use a complete clio body and put an engine where the rear seats were

as to the gearbox linkage being the reason for DCT the manual RS clio uses a rod which i cant see it making any difference weather it goes forwards or back

Edited by 172 on Thursday 7th February 00:47

[stephendell]

Kolbenkopp said:

Cayman starts at 52.527,00 € in France. Really hope they get the price for the Alpine near 30k. I wouldn't mind lots of off the shelf parts in it as long as it drives right. I'm also in the "pick 2" camp. Noway this will be like the specs and at that price. Bit more realistic than the 4C, but still...

Thanks for the info! So the Alpine doesn't have to try too hard in France to be cheaper than a Cayman then which is closer to £45K GBP equivalent over there.

[Kolbenkopp]

stephendell said:

Thanks for the info! So the Alpine doesn't have to try too hard in France to be cheaper than a Cayman then which is closer to £45K GBP equivalent over there.

Pleasure. Yup, Porsche pricing in Europe leaves them some room to manoeuvre, especially as no one orders a 0-Options Porsche for whatever reason. Most will be € 60k and up.

Would also be wise to leave some room to the 4C. Cayman 60k, 4C 50k, A-C 40k (€)? Lots of choice suddenly .

[Greg_D]

maffski said:

I suspect Renault have no idea how you would design and build a entirely new model with a target of only 10,000 units. A company like Caterham understand how to keep the design and production line costs down, Renault will be used to spending a fortune on design and tooling in order to minimise the unit cost - but they would need to sell hundreds of thousands to make money that way.

so essentially, caterham's experience in making brackets to hang things off!!!

I don't get why caterham is even involved, tbh. There is NOTHING in this venture that renault couldn't easily do themselves. a little risk sharing, possibly. A bit of a market in the uk, maaaaaybe beyond that i'm struggling tbh