RE: Road-legal Alpine A110 GT4? Please God, yes...

[cerb4.5lee]

Guvernator said:

2 litre 4 pot turbo

It can only dream of having a 2 litre engine...it is only a 1.8!!

It has embraced downsizing and the modern auto gearbox craze for sure.

All joking aside though I am a big fan of the A110 road car...even though it doesn't offer all of the ingredients of what some might say are essential in a drivers car.

[Miserablegit]

C.MW said:

If this GT version comes with an engine that doesn't run out of puff all the way upto the redine and either a manual gearbox or a faster shifting automated one, is there much reason to choose the Boxter over this except badge snobbery? I think not.

The standard version does all of this and is faster to 80 than a Cayster S.
Standard Cayster not in the same league at all.

Always happy to see more power but if it is being touted as a “GT4” then we need a spoiler or two like the racing version and a fancy bonnet

[Andy83n]

blueg33 said:

Why - looks? or another reason.

Looks, principally, but also the whole package is absolutley meh.

See also GT86/BRZ, New Supra etc beige versions of classic sports cars, laregely irrelevant today.

[blueg33]

Fair enough on the subjective stuff, but handling is pretty much top of the class so I’m not sure the whole package deserves a meh.

IMO the Cayman is more meh. Similarly it has a turbo 4 pot, most are pdk, looks ok, chassis good but not the best, specialness not a lot.

Problem or maybe the good thing is that in this class is that each contender is a different compromise. Elise is a bit hardcore, 4c flawed handling, cayman a bit annodyne, alpine marmite looks, supra looks awful. Not much else at £50k ish unless looking at used cars and that’s not a fair comparison.

[paul13]

blueg33 said:

I still wish it was more like this one



That would have parted me from my money very quickly

Agreed, that is a stunning looking car (just wish I could have afforded one, if they made it!).

[coppice]

JohnnyFive said:

They'll struggle to use the name GT4 if they intend to sell it as a road car.
Porsche own the trade mark for road cars at GT2/3/4.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet . as Shakespeare put it .

But not as sweet as the car which inspired the A110 - as Shakespeare didn't put it.

[Olivera]

paul13 said:

Agreed, that is a stunning looking car (just wish I could have afforded one, if they made it!).

Those are available to buy, albeit not road legal, at something like £300k+

https://www.renaultsport.co.uk/cars/renault-sport-...

[Nerdherder]

Olivera said:

Those are available to buy, albeit not road legal, at something like £300k+

https://www.renaultsport.co.uk/cars/renault-sport-...

Why have I never seen any media coverage of this very interesting bit of machinery?

P.s. The standard A110 is the perfect car for me, even like the looks..

[MarJay]

Sheesh, can we have a thread on any decent enthusiast car here without a tonne of people saying "Waah I don't liiike it!"

So it has a paddle shift PDK auto. So it's sub 2.0 litres. It looks fantastic, handles like nothing else on earth, rides well, does 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. Surely it has to gain some credit for the effort?

For YEARS members of this forum were lamenting the death of the lightweight sports car. "GTR's are uninvolving and cost too much!", "I'm bored of MX5's!"

Then Toyota bring out the GT86.

"Waaah it doesn't have enough power!" "Weight is the enemy of the modern car!"

Then Alpine the A110.

"Waah it's not a Cayman and it doesn't have a stick shift!" (despite having a buttload more power than the GT86).

Frankly the naysaying is tiresome. So I'll probably never own one of these, but if I had the opportunity? You'd be damn sure I'd be thinking long and hard about one of these, even if I did end up buying an M2 or similar instead.

[Miserablegit]

I look forward to seeing the figures- be interested to see the torque they are putting through the gearbox. I know a few owners who are holding back on tuning an A110 as they want to see how durable the gearbox is - they've come from Porsche however so they are used to chocolate PDK's and third gears made out of glass.

With a 20% hike in power the acceleration should be considerably improved - perhaps mid 3?? but I'm interested to see what has happened to top speed - the A110 is limited to 155 as, apparently, that was the maximum without having a spoiler but I'm sure the gearing limited it as well. Can't see Alpine putting a load of new ratios in just for this car?

Good luck to them - I wonder what the price is going to be - 62k?

[C.MW]

MarJay said:

Sheesh, can we have a thread on any decent enthusiast car here without a tonne of people saying "Waah I don't liiike it!"

So it has a paddle shift PDK auto. So it's sub 2.0 litres. It looks fantastic, handles like nothing else on earth, rides well, does 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. Surely it has to gain some credit for the effort?

For YEARS members of this forum were lamenting the death of the lightweight sports car. "GTR's are uninvolving and cost too much!", "I'm bored of MX5's!"

Then Toyota bring out the GT86.

"Waaah it doesn't have enough power!" "Weight is the enemy of the modern car!"

Then Alpine the A110.

"Waah it's not a Cayman and it doesn't have a stick shift!" (despite having a buttload more power than the GT86).

Frankly the naysaying is tiresome. So I'll probably never own one of these, but if I had the opportunity? You'd be damn sure I'd be thinking long and hard about one of these, even if I did end up buying an M2 or similar instead.

I totally agree with this. The GT86 and the new Alpine are both great cars that their repective manufacturers shouldn't have to offer if all they cared about was money (like BMW of recent).

[stew-STR160]

I've seen a couple of A110 around the last few weeks. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's a French car I'd actually like to have.

[griffdude]

Litchfield are already offering a substantial power hike-
https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-driven/litchfi...

Edited by griffdude on Friday 24th May 08:13

[fredjones]

Sheesh again. The orignal A110 was delivered in three forms. Berlinetta, a two seater closed car. Cabriolet, a two seater drophead. And GT4, a close-coupled four seater closed car.

If anyone owns the model designation GT4, it is Alpine.

[Nerdherder]

griffdude said:

Litchfield are already offering a substantial power hike-
https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-driven/litchfi...

Edited by griffdude on Friday 24th May 08:13

Thnx for sharing, had not seen this when it was published.

[bcr5784]

Nerdherder said:

Thnx for sharing, had not seen this when it was published.

There's a couple of other tuners doing similar remaps and I know of a third who is working on it at the moment. Personally have my doubts, partly because of concerns about torque capacity of the gearbox (quoted as the 320nm which is already claimed). All of the remaps so far give a big slug of midrange torque which will increase the perception of lag (time to full boost will increase) which I wouldn't want. As it is, from 3000 revs upwards the engine feels more like an NA engine than most of the opposition. I'd like to enhance that feeling by improving torque from 5000 upwards. That approach wouldn't give the outright performance figures that a big slug of midrange would, but it would make for a nicer engine imo (and it's actually a fun engine as it is).

[Guvernator]

MarJay said:

Sheesh, can we have a thread on any decent enthusiast car here without a tonne of people saying "Waah I don't liiike it!"

So it has a paddle shift PDK auto. So it's sub 2.0 litres. It looks fantastic, handles like nothing else on earth, rides well, does 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. Surely it has to gain some credit for the effort?

For YEARS members of this forum were lamenting the death of the lightweight sports car. "GTR's are uninvolving and cost too much!", "I'm bored of MX5's!"

Then Toyota bring out the GT86.

"Waaah it doesn't have enough power!" "Weight is the enemy of the modern car!"

Then Alpine the A110.

"Waah it's not a Cayman and it doesn't have a stick shift!" (despite having a buttload more power than the GT86).

Frankly the naysaying is tiresome. So I'll probably never own one of these, but if I had the opportunity? You'd be damn sure I'd be thinking long and hard about one of these, even if I did end up buying an M2 or similar instead.

Looks fantastic to you, I and a few others thinks it looks pretty awful hence it fails at the first hurdle for a sports car for me. I know they've tried to copy some of the styling cues from the original Alpine but the proportions are all wrong for me. If it was jaw achingly good looking I could probably forgive it the so-so engine and even the PDK.

I'm still glad they made it as the ethos is awesome but much like the GT86, I don't actually desire it.

[The Vambo]

fredjones said:

If anyone owns the model designation GT4, it is Alpine.

I don't know for certain but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

[Buzzfan]

Another vote against it's looks from me - I went to view 2 in the flesh last weekend. The rear end looked much better than photos suggest, aston-ish, but the short high bonnet reminded me of many fwd sport coupés, not aided by the secondary lights - and overall it seemed about 2-3" too tall. Shame as I love the concept and understand from others it drives brilliantly.

[bcr5784]

Buzzfan said:

Another vote against it's looks from me - I went to view 2 in the flesh last weekend. The rear end looked much better than photos suggest, aston-ish, but the short high bonnet reminded me of many fwd sport coupés, not aided by the secondary lights - and overall it seemed about 2-3" too tall. Shame as I love the concept and understand from others it drives brilliantly.

The reason it's a couple of inches taller than it might otherwise have been is because Fernandez wanted to be able to get into it - and he's not a midget. I can get into an Elise easily enough and perhaps you can too - but most can't . It's already a couple of inches lower than a Cayman despite more ground clearance. It's all about making the Alpine an everyday car - which is its great plus over an Elise/Exige or 4C. Drive it and you might (as pretty well everyone else has driven it) find that such issues - and the fact that it isn't a manual and is a turbo - really really don't amount to a hill of beans. As the original PH article says - the only people who don't rave about the A110 haven't driven it.

Edited by bcr5784 on Friday 24th May 20:24