Renault Alpine A110-50 to be built(?)
Renault Alpine A110-50 to be built(?)
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BuzzLightyear

Original Poster:

1,426 posts

199 months

Thursday 11th October 2012
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You may remember that rather gorgeous Alpine concept that was in the news a couple of months ago...



...well, according to Auto Express, it's going to be built as a joint venture between Renault and Caterham, priced at c 50,000 Euros.


What's more, Caterham would produce its own version of the car!

I really hope this one turns out to be true and the road version is unchanged (visually) from the concept.

Edited by BuzzLightyear on Thursday 11th October 15:10

cymtriks

4,561 posts

262 months

Saturday 13th October 2012
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A new Alpine would be a lovely idea.

That concept, however, has nothing in common with the cars that Alpine once made. Take a look at the lovely A108 (especially the convertable), the A110, or the 80's/90's GTAs. They are very different to an Elise knock off, which is frankly all that concept is.

Also the last thing Caterham need is to get involved in this deal. They are a tiny company, little known outside a small circle of sportscar enthusiasts and with an even smaller circle of customers. They haven't made a car with full body work for nearly twenty years. What would the Caterham name bring to the project? Nothing.

Caterham already have their own full body car in the form of the C21. The only thing wrong with it is the chassis which forces so many compromises on the design (silly doors, windows that didn't open, no more space than in a Seven) that you may as well have a Seven. Put that lovely body on an Elan style chassis and you'd have a car that would make more sense.

CarCluster

183 posts

155 months

Monday 15th October 2012
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Perhaps an understandable solution - too expensive to go-it-alone as although the Alpine name has some heritage it will be tough to really get enough potential buyers in that price bracket. The Caterham F1 association has to be leveraged somehow, presumably the company wants to survive. There was an alarming sentence in the AutoExpress article, though: "the proposed Alpine sports car will look quite different to the A110-50 concept car". That's a shame given the positive response. I don't think I mis-read it, I would expect any Caterham version to look different (though that doesn't actually seem to be planned), but not the Alpine?