Renault is resurrecting the legendary French sports car brand Alpine and what you see here are the first official pictures of its new mid-engined, rear-wheel drive sports car, called the A110.
Not much in the way of technical details have been revealed ahead of the car’s planned official debut at the Geneva Motor Show next week, but we do know from previous teaser campaigns that Alpine is claiming a 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.5 seconds.
Thanks to its all-aluminium platform and upper body, the two-seater sports car can rely on its light kerb weight, rather than a massive engine, to achieve that kind of performance. Rumour has it that the car will be powered by a 2-litre turbopetrol engine nicked from the next-generation Renault Megane RS.
Customer deliveries are set to start towards the end of this year, and Renault has already opened the order books, although South Africa does not appear on the list of eligible countries.
The design of the new sports car is clearly inspired by the A110 of 1962, which is regarded as one of the best rally cars of its generation. The A110’s production cycle extended all the way to 1978, by which time around 12 000 of them had been manufactured around the world.
The Alpine sports car brand was founded in 1955 by Jean Rédélé, a race car driver and Renault dealer whose dream was to create a compact sports car using as many mass-produced parts as possible.