Alpine | PH Meets
With Dan P's A110 not far from completion, what better time to visit Dieppe and apply the finishing touch
Fifty years ago, Jean Rédélé opened a purpose-built manufacturing facility in the north of France. Until then, he'd been building his little sports cars in a cramped workshop on Avenue Pasteur in the middle of Dieppe, but with so little space in which to work his fledgling performance car company could only produce two and a half cars each week - demand was not being met. The new factory, built on a 20,000-square metre plot of land on the outskirts of town, would allow Alpine to flourish.
For almost three decades, Alpines were manufactured right here. The last of the A110 Berlinettes rolled off the line in 1977, but throughout the 70s, 80s and the first half of the 90s, models like the A310 and the GTA kept the factory busy and the Alpine name alive. It wasn't to last. The marque was mothballed by parent company Groupe Renault in 1995, the very last Alpine (or so we thought) emerging from the factory gates on April 7th of that year.
The factory, however, was not about to fall into disrepair. From 1996 onwards its skilled workforce assembled the quirky Renault Sport Spider, the plant later becoming the cradle of high performance Renault road cars as well as many of the brand's competition machines. Dieppe might not have been building Alpines any longer, but it had a very clear purpose nonetheless: whenever Groupe Renault needed to make sporty models in relatively low volumes and to exacting standards, it looked to the seaside town.
Naturally, it was also where Groupe Renault turned for Alpine's relaunch. Where else? The first present-day A110 was manufactured here at the end of 2017, on the very spot Rédélé had hand-picked half a century ago. The factory was refitted entirely, €35m having been spent upgrading it and readying it for the manufacture of a lightweight and, crucially, aluminium sports car. The body shop and assembly line are unrecognisable from the Renault Sport days, never mind Rédélé's era.
I visited Dieppe earlier this month partly to look around the updated factory, but mostly to watch my own A110 edge its way down the assembly line. As I write, my car will either be in the finishing area, where final quality checks are carried out (diligently, I hope), or waiting patiently outside the factory, wrapped in a protective white suit, ready to be loaded onto a transporter.
The revival of the Alpine brand wasn't only positive news for the Dieppe area (151 jobs were created almost overnight); according to plant director Pierre-Emmanuel Andrieux, it was nothing less than a matter of pride among the local community. That makes a lot of sense to me. If l lived in an otherwise unremarkable port town that was home to a charming car company - one that had won Le Mans and the Monte Carlo Rally, and built a string of unusual sports cars - I'd be immensely proud to call that port home.
I could spend hours in the viewing gallery high above the body shop floor watching sheets of aluminium being bonded and riveted together until they take on the form of a car. It's a giant alloy puzzle in 3D. Throughout the body shop, 70 operators press these pieces together, assisted by five robots that whizz and whir in all directions with such precision you swear they're sentient.
On the first half of the line, the tubs that form the backbone of the A110 are pieced together. A pair of enormous ovens mark the midway point. The tubs sit inside these for 45 minutes each, temperatures within gradually climbing to 180 degrees Celsius and slowly falling again. This sets the glue, making the tub as rigid as it can be. Into the ovens with each tub go two separate samples, bonded and riveted together just like the structure itself. One sample is tested for strength and quality once the heating process is complete, while the second is stored away indefinitely so that should a problem arise with a particular car later in its life, the sample can be analysed as part of an investigation. One for every single car produced.
Dieppe is not in the business of mass production. Not like Groupe Renault's other plants, anyway. At the moment, the factory is producing 15 cars per day from a peak of 25, when demand for the first batch of 1,955 Premiere Edition models far outstripped expectations. 'Takt time' describes how long each car sits at each station along the production line. At Nissan's plant in Sunderland, the takt time is 58 seconds - as a result one finished Qashqai or Juke will drop off the end of the line at a rate of (more or less) one a minute - whereas at Dieppe it's 29 minutes. As Andrieux points out, this means operators will complete the same task 15 times a day, rather than 450.
Once the tubs have been cooked to perfection, they emerge from the ovens to have side panels, wings and closures attached. And suddenly you recognise the A110. There is a level of quality control in action here that you won't find at many sports car plants. Every single body is measured every which way by hand, and a certain number will have a set of dummy lights and a front bumper fitted to ensure they're straight and true. There's another batch test on top of that: a handful of bodies spend four hours inside an enormous room, a bit like a squash court, being measured with millimetric precision by a robot.
Once the bodies have been built, they're transported to a separate facility 60 miles away to be dipped in an anti-corrosion solution. Aluminium doesn't rust, but over a very long time it can begin to corrode. The bodies return to Dieppe for painting, before moving on to the assembly line.
It's here, halfway along, that we bump into my car. By this point it's already had its suspension and brakes fitted, as well as much of the interior and the wiring harness. We catch up with it moments after the marriage of powertrain and body, just before its wheels are attached. I can see the Thunder Grey paintwork and the standard grey callipers, plus the uprated brakes and 18-inch Fuchs wheels that I spent around £2,500 on, as well as the single peashooter exhaust exit that reminds me I went without the £1,380 sports pipes.
What a strange experience it is to watch your own car being assembled on a production line. I stare at the thing and repeat to myself something along the lines of 'that's your car', but it doesn't feel real. I only see a half-built A110 raised high on a ramp, its engine and gearbox having just been bolted in. Not until I'm handed a marker pen and invited to sign the rear bumper support does it hit home. I'm being completely sincere when I say my hand was shaky and the mark I left on the support looked nothing like my actual signature.
Sorry. That's a bit nauseating. It's true though. We go elsewhere in the factory for an hour or so but by this point, distracted by thoughts of my own car, I'm not really paying attention. I do catch one or two things: each car goes through a kind of monsoon simulator to ensure it isn't leaking, and every car is driven on the road for 15 miles or so to ensure nothing's amiss.
From start to finish the build process takes three weeks. Two and a half days are spent in the body shop, three on the anti-corrosion loop, another three in paint (four if it's the pearlescent paint finish), one and a half on the assembly line and five in the finishing area. This is where each car is checked over thoroughly, where the monsoon tests are carried out and where the short test drives begin.
Before heading home, we check in on my car one last time. Having just had its front bumper fitted it sits on its wheels for the very first time, looking squat and purposeful. And without a rear bumper, a bit Mad Max. We take a few pictures, I stare at it for longer than is appropriate and we leave, my car slowly moving towards the end of the line as we drive back to Calais, the rest of its interior and bodywork being attached step by step.
This wasn't so much a factory visit, joked my family, as an ultrasound scan. Seems about right to me. My Alpine A110 has now been born, but I won't see it again until the day I collect it from the dealership. That day cannot come soon enough.
Search for an Alpine A110 here
An RCZ in this thread Still does not change fact that the RCZ is built on a series platform versus the bespoke chassis of the A110 and 4C.
I personally wish that the RCZ WOULD have been a mid engined car with a specific sports car chassis as I think it's not any less special looking than the 4C or A110.
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