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Alpine A110

Posted by Chris Dykes

Not all Alpines are blue, of course, but the familiar image of France’s best rally car is of that metallic blue berlinette plastered with sponsor stickers and mud, with two driving lights set inboard of the headlamps, being flung around dirt corners. Alpine’s founder, Jean Redele, knew rally cars as well as he knew style, and used his connections with Renault to make a car that could win races and become an icon.

Redele’s father was a Renault dealer in Dieppe, France, a port town on the English Channel 100 miles northeast of Paris, which Germany had hit hard during World War II. Jean was born in 1922 and spent his early adult years rebuilding the dealership, and as time and money allowed, entering rallies in Renault 4CVs. Victories came often, but it was his style of arrival that so frustrated his competitors, for after a grueling race Redele would emerge victorious from his Renault looking fresh and wearing a clean suit, while those who finished after him looked, well, like rally drivers look at the end of an event. Explaining his sartorially splendid entrance to the winner’s circle, Redele claimed to have calculated the winning pace and beaten it by a bit, thereby allowing himself time to stop at an inn for a change of clothes. Or so the story goes.

His success in rallying the Renaults gave him confidence in their abilities, and his connections with the company gave him access to mechanical components. By 1952 he decided to make modifications to the 4CVs and commissioned Michelotti to design the bodywork, which was a stubby coupe marrying a rear end reminiscent of a Porsche 356 with a familial Renault nose. He named the car the Alpine Mille Miles because of his love of races over Alpine roads, and with two more years of racing success he became convinced that a production car was possible. In 1955, with supplies from Renault, the Alpine 106 Mille Miles debuted. When referring to the French cars, one should say “Alpeen,” but when referring to either the mountain range or the British Sunbeam sports cars, say “Alpine.”

The little car racked up racing victories and became fashionable on the streets of Paris, where competition was for parking spaces and admiring looks from passers by. Redele had created a competitive car that people wanted to be seen in, and in 1957 a cabriolet was added, followed in 1959 by a 2+2, both more marketable to families and fashionistas than a strict coupe These additions were called A108, and were built until 1965 using Renault Dauphine mechanicals underneath the fiberglass shell designed by Michelotti. Rather than using a combined chassis and body, these cars incorporated a steel backbone construction, which meant that a steel tube connected the front and rear, with a double wishbone suspension up front and swing axles in back. Production was such that the bodies would be finished, painted, and trimmed out before any of the Renault mechanicals were installed. The Lotus Elan, which incorporated the same construction, did not debut until 1962. In 1959 production in the factory at Dieppe was two cars a week.

In 1961, yet another body style was introduced, and this foreshadowed the definitive Alpine. Called the A108 Berlinette Tour de France, the car was a rear-engined two-seater, with a lower roofline that any of the earlier cars. Like the cabriolet and 2+2, it used the old Dauphine components.

In 1963 a few visual changes were made to accommodate the many mechanical changes brought on by the use of newly introduced Renault R8 components. Different enough to be an all new car, it was called the A110, and it became the iconic Alpine, often painted French racing blue. Because of an error in the fiberglass mold, the left side of an A110 is lower than the right.

Fitted with a functional if not fancy wooden dashboard, and complete with full carpeting, the A110 was at heart a race car, but sales to would-be racers are still sales, and Redele provided customers with at least a hint of civility. Such attempts at creature comforts would be mitigated by the cacophony inside the cabin, for the fiberglass shell created an echo chamber for the rear engine. From the whirr of the starter to mild, cool engine acceleration, to, in time, full-on cruising, Alpines are a rush for the senses, especially the auditory.

Like Lotus’ Colin Chapman, Redele favored lightweight cars with soft springs and firm damping, making the A110 quite livable on the road. Like driving a 911 fast, one should enter corners carefully, watching out for oversteer on bumps, and then hammer the throttle and let the high-revving rear engine put the power down to the wheels beneath, and rocket out of turns.

There simply isn’t much car for the engine to push, and key to the feel of an Alpine is its size and weight, or lack thereof. An A110 is over a foot shorter in length than a 1960s 911, an inch narrower than a Lotus Elan, and yet the same height as the convertible Elan, despite being a berlinette. The car’s wheelbase is about three inches longer than a classic Mini. While a Mini might weigh about 1,540 pounds and a Lotus Elan about 1,420 pounds, an A110 weighs in at 1,200 pounds.

Of tremendous benefit to Alpine, Renault had such confidence in the cars that they were sold in Renault dealerships with a full Renault warranty. Those would-be racers could take their hand-built rarity back to the dealer on the corner for service, which would help justify the relatively expensive cost of the car. In the early 1960s in Britain, an Elan could be had for a little more than 1,000 pounds sterling, while an Alpine would approach 2,000 pounds. From 1960 to 1965, about 300 cars a year were produced at Dieppe. In 1967, Renault appointed Redele head of their newly created competition division, and Alpines were their official race cars. Of the 200 employees at Dieppe, a full 50 were in the competition department. By 1970 production was up to 1,000 cars a year, and in 1972 it peaked at 1,400.

The early 1970s were competition high marks as well. In both 1971 and again in 1973, Alpines finished 1-2-3 in the rally of Monte Carlo, and in 1973 Alpines won every rally they entered with the exception of Sweden’s. Success meant more production, and with Renault’s licensing and machinery, foreign countries were producing A110s. Spain was the closest to Dieppe, but A110s were built by Willys-Interlagos in Brazil, where a young Emerson Fittipaldi cut his racing teeth in one, and even behind the Iron Curtain in Bulgaria.

With such success almost ten years after being introduced, time, circumstance, and competitors were bound to catch up, and they did. Feeling the need for a successor, Alpine began working on the A310, another rear-engine car, but fitted more luxuriously, and thus more suited to potential Porsche buyers. But the expense of the A310’s development combined with the international fuel crisis put Alpine in financial hardship, and Redele sold his company to Renault. Then in 1974 Lancia introduced the Stratos, which would become the next great rally car. The A110 was no longer competitive, and production at Dieppe ceased in 1977 after 7,176 cars were produced. Spanish production ended at 1,566, while Brazilian production was in the hundreds and the Bulgarians likely produced fewer than a hundred.

There are perhaps fewer than three dozen A110s in North America, and a couple of specialist shops. Renault followed the A110 with the A310, and A610, both highly praised by the press but not as impressive to the public as a Porsche or Lotus. When Alpine production at Dieppe ended in 1994, employees were given the task of assembling Renault minivans. Still, though, when a journalist stopped by for research on a historical piece, driving an A110, workers piled out and cheered when they recognized the distinctive sound from the parking lot.

– Chris Dykes