Another walk through the history books - this time at the lineage of the Alpine sports car and how it evolved into a Porsche rival.
Renaults have never sold well in the States, although they have been sold. The most famous Renault sold in North America was also the worst one - the Renault Dauphine. Dauphine means heir to the throne – although the car arrived more than 150 years after the French Revolution and the abolition of the monarchy there.
Arriving in 1957 on North America’s roads the French car gained a reputation, somewhat fairly for not being up to scratch. For some reason, people did not warm to the performance on the highway with 27hp helping the small family car to reach 60mph in nearly 40 seconds. It must have felt a little slow as the power was transmitted through a 3-speed box.
It did rust quickly though, so it was not slow on all fronts. The car was not a sales success and did not help Renault’s reputation, although the Dauphine did at least have rear-engine and rear-wheel drive like a Porsche 911. It was also harder to get parts and servicing done on cars from France and this would not have been in their favor if you were thinking of choosing between an American car and one from the EU. They did try with the Dauphine, it was tested for well over a million miles all over Europe from the dusty dry climate of Madrid and around Spain for 1,000 miles, to other countries and even the arctic circle. The development team must have been reasonably confident of the durability of the car, and it must have been disappointing for Renault.
Other French brands like Citroen managed to flog the futuristic DS but still had to pull out due to low sales in the end after 1970. Peugeot sold its large 505 sedans, and many were allocated directly as taxis for New York. Most of the other French cars which were sold were reasonable and unremarkable small family boxes. Apart from the DS, which was met with universal interest and really pushed boundaries with regards to mechanical innovation and styling, there were some interesting models sold by Renault through the 70s and 80s, one being the tiny-but powerful Renault 5 Turbo and another being the Alpine series of cars (Alpine being a sports division of Renault). The early Alpine cars slowly acquired the heritage through which the current Alpine A110 would be conceived.
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Alpine had existed since the 1950s as an independent company to develop lightweight and relatively cheap sports cars. After a steady stream of cars made with help from Renault by way of access to mass-produced parts, the company rolled out one of its arguably best-known from the period.
Enter the Alpine A110 - it was and still is an early rally icon, the small usually blue pocket rocket went on to dominate in various rallies. This, not unlike the Dauphine, was rear-engined and rear-wheel drive, but even with the basic 1.1-liter engine and 66hp, made two and half times the power of the Dauphine and was quite a bit more attractive. It did not have room for your golf clubs on the back seats, though, as there were not any. Back seats, that is.
The successful A110 was offered from the mid-60s and was built in Mexico although under a different name – Dinalpin – which did not have the same appeal somehow. If it’s the performance which is most interesting to you, there was a version with a 1.6-liter engine, which made 125hp, but don’t forget it was working inside a light rally car and so would have had a favorable power-to-weight ratio.
The successor to the A110 was the A310, quite a departure size-wise but retaining influences from the earlier car. It arrived at the beginning of the 70s in Europe to take the fight to the Porsche 911 but the fuel crisis in 1973 meant that Renault stepped in to take a majority stake in the company, so now it was not just using parts from the Renault bin but had support from the Renault sporting division.
It was a futuristic-looking car while retaining a lot of style from its origins, evolving from the A110 rather than being born new. The long-running rear-engine and rear-drive feature of Alpine cars remained, although the first version was underpowered considering the extra weight over the predecessor. It came with a 4-cylinder 130hp 1.6-liter engine, which would eventually be supplemented by a 2.7-liter V6 version – offering 150hp – which was better but still not quite enough to beat the Porsche at its own game. A GT version could be later specified upping power to 190hp.
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Things did get more interesting – the Renault Alpine GTA arrived around 1985 (in Europe) with a further refined body style and high-pressure molding for the vehicle’s body to give increased rigidity. This helped it compete with Porsche although sales would still be dragging far behind its competitors at this point. GTA by the way stood for Grand Tourism Alpine (Alpine Grand Touring). The car used V6s at this point, with or without turbos, making 150hp in the naturally aspirated model or 200 for the turbo. These were good figures for the time, at least from a French automaker but the association with Renault strong and one the company would find hard to shake. This was the second generation of the new Alpines, the third if you count the A110, and the company would have to innovate to stay competitive.
The GTA became the A610 and gained pop-up headlights. This instantly won points as did the styling, which would become more rounded and refined, looking less angular and futuristic but still almost managed to look nearly as appealing in the same way as a period Porsche or Ferrari would have done. There was a version that was developed for the US market, but this didn’t go to plan, it would have made 180hp, but Renault was leaving North America at the time and it would have been a difficult sell.
One thing is for sure, the A610, big sister to the GTA, might have had more luck had it been green-lit in the US. It was a derivation of the GTA rather than a completely new model, due to lack of funds presumably, but it looked much more modern and possibly less ostentatious than the GTA. Engines options continued in the same fashion but the V6 turbo could now put out 250hp and was enlarged to 3-liters from the 2.9 before. The car was produced in the second half of the GTA/A610 period, from 1991 to 1995, overlapping with another French sports GT car – the Venturi Atlantique, which also was hoping to compete with Porsche using French V6 engines.
The new Alpine had not sold well in Europe however despite now being a capable and comfortable 170mph and sub-6-seconds-to-60mph GT car. Apart from niche groups and die-hard fans, it was proving too hard to move so was canned around 1995. It took more than 20 years for a new star to be born, in the new A110. It arrived looking remarkably similar to the hunkered-down blue pocket rocket from the 60s, with a light body housing a turbo-charged rear-midship engine. It has garnered near-universal acclaim in the 4 years it has been on sale and will be interesting to see how it evolves. If anything, the story proves that sometimes you cannot fight the tide but with a little (or a lot) of perseverance and some luck you can do anything if your heart is in the right place. It’s still a shame they didn’t bring back the pop-up headlights.
Hailing from Britain, the home of both MG and Aston Martin, Dave is no stranger to sports cars. Or a little rain. When he's not busy working his day-job or writing songs and pretending to be a musician; Dave indulges his obsession with cars by writing and researching diligently, so that he can inform and convert other people to the dark side.