Alpine A110 owners

Alpine A110 owners

Author
Discussion

rudester

656 posts

151 months

Monday 20th January 2020
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s111dpc said:
Well the deed has been done, deposit put down on an A110s this afternoon, delivery expected in June, going to be a long wait woohoo

Anyone want to buy an MX5 smile
It would be rude not to put up your final spec given the subject of this thread!
Congratulations on th new purchase!

s111dpc

Original Poster:

1,339 posts

228 months

Monday 20th January 2020
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Lol, fair challenge smile

I was planning on speccing a Pure with the following, sports exhaust, mirror pack, parking sensors, blue calipers, Focal audio and steering wheel with blue trim. But then went to the dealers again and started looking at the S properly (they had 3 at the dealers) and really liked the black and orange trim, plus it comes fully kitted out with all the option I was considering. So after running the numbers a few times and doing a bit of man maths I signed on the dotted line for an S in Glacier white with the mirror pack.


iKenndac

101 posts

213 months

Wednesday 22nd January 2020
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s111dpc said:
Well the deed has been done, deposit put down on an A110s this afternoon, delivery expected in June
Hooray! Congratulations!

I'm in the process of planning an amazing roadtrip in my A110 in April. We'll be going down to the Nürburgring for a sticker, then over to the UK and a trackday at Snetterton so I can learn the car on a track I'm familiar with. Then, we'll be heading up to Scotland for a week jaunting around the hills before multiple overnight ferries to get back up to Stockholm.

It'll be ~4500km of driving in a little over two weeks eek (I really wish the ferries from the UK to either Denmark or Gothenburg were still running), but it'll be epic!

tail slide

2,168 posts

246 months

Wednesday 22nd January 2020
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Thats an epic trip, did a similar one getting to know my new TVR years in 2004 to Spa & 'Ring.

The start of a close relationship that's never ended ! biggrin

s111dpc

Original Poster:

1,339 posts

228 months

Wednesday 22nd January 2020
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Wow, sounds like a fantastic trip, enjoy!

iKenndac

101 posts

213 months

Saturday 25th January 2020
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So, the A110 does suffer in the interior storage department. The cup "holder" is so shallow that it's basically useless.

"Why," I thought, "This sounds like a perfect excuse to justify buying that 3D printer I've been wanting for years!"

I went out for a "spirited drive" this morning and hit .75G according to the telemetrics thing (damp roads and winter tyres) — and my refreshing beverage stayed put. Problem solved!




s111dpc

Original Poster:

1,339 posts

228 months

Saturday 25th January 2020
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Looks good, open to commissions wink

bcr5784

7,103 posts

144 months

Monday 27th January 2020
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Glad to see you have embraced the featherweight ethos with lightening holes.biggrin

iKenndac

101 posts

213 months

Monday 27th January 2020
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Exactly! Speed holes!

Pity the weight I'll put on from all that fizzy drink will more than negate the weight advantage of the speed holes. laugh

RedAMG45

728 posts

158 months

Monday 27th January 2020
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Frimley111R said:
I'm staying off this thread, I'm just tormenting myself! hehe
Same here

Miserablegit

4,013 posts

108 months

Monday 27th January 2020
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iKenndac said:
Hooray! Congratulations!

I'm in the process of planning an amazing roadtrip in my A110 in April. We'll be going down to the Nürburgring for a sticker, then over to the UK and a trackday at Snetterton so I can learn the car on a track I'm familiar with. Then, we'll be heading up to Scotland for a week jaunting around the hills before multiple overnight ferries to get back up to Stockholm.

It'll be ~4500km of driving in a little over two weeks eek (I really wish the ferries from the UK to either Denmark or Gothenburg were still running), but it'll be epic!
I’ll keep an eye out for you - I’m an hour from Snetterton and hope to be on the NC500 in second week of May

iKenndac

101 posts

213 months

Wednesday 29th January 2020
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If anyone is actually interested in having a useable cup holder in their A110 and has access to a 3D printer, I put the file up here on Thingiverse. Enjoy!

bcr5784

7,103 posts

144 months

Thursday 30th January 2020
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I see you can get one for about £10 including delivery - seems like a good buy.

iKenndac

101 posts

213 months

Thursday 30th January 2020
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bcr5784 said:
I see you can get one for about £10 including delivery - seems like a good buy.
Just to clarify — only the file is mine, and if you have access to a 3D printer you can download the file for free and print it. There are companies that'll take the file and print it for you for a cost, but that's nothing to do with me and I don't make any money from it or anything. They are likely to do a better job of actually printing it than me with my one entire week of 3D printing experience, mind!

bcr5784

7,103 posts

144 months

Sunday 2nd February 2020
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iKenndac said:
Just to clarify — only the file is mine, and if you have access to a 3D printer you can download the file for free and print it. There are companies that'll take the file and print it for you for a cost, but that's nothing to do with me and I don't make any money from it or anything. They are likely to do a better job of actually printing it than me with my one entire week of 3D printing experience, mind!
With 3D printers now starting at well below £100, I'm tempted to have a play. Did you use an expensive printer?

springfan62

831 posts

75 months

Sunday 2nd February 2020
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Or just purchase a Camelbak Eddy which fits perfectly in the standard recess.

bcr5784

7,103 posts

144 months

Sunday 2nd February 2020
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springfan62 said:
Or just purchase a Camelbak Eddy which fits perfectly in the standard recess.
Has it been tested to 0.75G I'm bound to ask? laugh

iKenndac

101 posts

213 months

Sunday 2nd February 2020
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bcr5784 said:
With 3D printers now starting at well below £100, I'm tempted to have a play. Did you use an expensive printer?
I used a Creality Ender 3 Pro, which I paid about €190 for in a sale. To be clear, I'm totally happy for you to order a 3D print of it off that site — I just wanted to make sure you knew how it worked!

Franzino

493 posts

159 months

Monday 3rd February 2020
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bcr5784 said:
I'm very much inclined to agree. The upgraded brakes are the same size as those on a 981S Porsche - which has similar performance - but is 300kg heavier. They are fine on the Porsche on the road, so probably overkill for the the Alpine on the road. That said the upgraded Alpine brakes are really nice in terms of feel and progression - whether on road or track,,,,,,
Any idea how you can spot the visual difference between the normal brakes and the uprated brakes?

Franzino

493 posts

159 months

Monday 3rd February 2020
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iKenndac said:
Not sure if this is too late — I hope not!

I took delivery of my A110 Légende in late November 2019 here in Sweden, and pretty much maxed-out the options list as it stood when I ordered it back in May 2019 (so no carbon roof etc). I took every factory-fit thing that was available apart from heated seats and the passenger footrest, and no additional carpets/nets/etc. I do have the "Storage Pack", though.

My main use for the A110 will be roadtrips across Europe and track days 2-3 times per year.

My thoughts on the options, apart from the visual ones (since that's all subjective anyway):

- Alpine Telemetrics: Absolute must-have, IMO. There's some neat little features in there, and there's instances where being sure the car is within the correct temperature range is important. Particularly during breaking in you want to be sure the car is up-to-temperature before really booting it, and on track you want to keep an eye on things to make sure it's not overheating. Apparently the DCT is prone to overheat during extended, constant track use, so being able to keep an eye on that is good. On a personal note, since this is my first DCT, being able to see how the temperature of the clutch behaves is proving very useful to learn how to be mechanically sympathetic to the car — rowing down the gearbox and then accelerating is fine, but doing the same with your foot down causes the clutch temperature to absolutely skyrocket, for instance. I'm also a data geek, so having the ability to record GPS and other data to a USB stick sounds great, even though I haven't used it yet.

- Sport Exhaust: I love how it sounds, but I'd like to be able to decouple the extra noise from sport mode. I much prefer the sport mode dashboard screen, but trundling down the hill into the village I live in at night in sport mode I think is a little too obnoxious with the engineered-in extra pops and bangs.

- Big Brakes: Since I go on the track often enough, I opted for the big brakes. The others on this thread are probably right that the regular ones are fine, but I repeatedly had trouble with overheating brakes on my MX-5 when I went on trackdays, so I wanted to be sure I didn't have that problem again. A nice little tidbit I found is that there's a bolt in the front wheelarch that you can undo to remove the black inserts in the brake cooling ducts. This gives more brake cooling at the expense of worse fuel economy due to increased drag.

- Premium Sound: On the Légende, the only difference between this and the regular sound system is the sub. To be honest, I would have been just as happy with the car without it, but in my defence I was coming from an MX-5 where you could barely hear anything from the sound system above 60mph or so, so I wanted the best I could get.

- Comfort Seats: Not an option for me in the Légende, but I would have gotten them anyway since I'm 6'1" and my wife is 4'10" — having to get the spanners out when swapping drivers is a no-go on the practicality front for me. Thankfully, I like them a lot!

- Folding Mirrors: I'm a sucker for folding mirrors, but they hardly stick out at all when unfolded anyway.

- Storage Package (aka the triangular box between the seats): This is the most expensive box I've ever bought, and I haven't used it yet. However, on a long trip it'll be great for storing bottles of drink etc. Do note that the interior lining of the box doesn't come out, so try not to get crumbs/sticky things in there!

A note on storage: The storage tray under the centre console is great, but the sides aren't very high — if you put your phone and wallet in there and one is on top of the other, well, the thing on top won't stay put for long. It's also a bit tricky to fish things out. I'm considering making a removable tray that goes in there with some dividers - you'd just pull the whole thing out and access things that way.

A note on phone connectivity: On the iPhone, at least, the mySpin connectivity thing is awful. It barely works, and disconnects when you turn off the phone's screen. Uninstalling the mySpin app and using Music through the iPod mode (or Bluetooth) works much better.

On the whole, I absolutely adore this car. I took delivery of it on winter tyres, and I can't wait until spring comes around and I can get proper tyres on it. If I were to order the car again under a little more of a budget, I would skip on the premium sound, folding mirrors, and maybe the storage box.

It's nice to meet some other A110 owners, and I hope you order yours soon, OP — you'll love it!

The A110 is very rare in Sweden — I'm car #21 in the country, and apparently the only one that took winter tyres. Cowards!
Our Legende has almost the same spec's for the same reasons...but included heated seats (daily driver of my girlfriend) and skipped the storage option (ugly thing between the seats and to expensive / bought the storage box from Alpine separately). Grey Legende with almost every option and winter + summer wheels... But if it was not a daily car; I would spec a Pure with Telemetrics, Passenger foot rest (looks cool), 18" Fuchs wheels, uprated brakes, sport exhaust, rearview cam, uprated sound or go straight for the awesome S if you can stretch the extra money.













More pics or experience with the car on my Insta: https://www.instagram.com/franzinodude/

Edited by Franzino on Monday 3rd February 13:58