Just 83 Alpine A110s came to Australia, two are owned by AMHF volunteers. This is the story of their brilliant French coupes: Andrew Moore’s Owning an Alpine and Paul Rogerson’s Confessions of an Alpine A110 Owner
OWNING AN ALPINE
by Andrew Moore
My first car, bought in 1971, still influences my decisions about purchasing cars. It was a second-hand 1967 Renault R10, known among the Renault cognoscenti as a ‘round eye’. At the time, aged 18, I would have been just as happy with an old Holden. Remove the hub caps. Paint the wheels Neptune Racing Team white. Punch a hole in the muffler. Perfect!
Perhaps thinking of the neighbours, my parents had other ideas. Somehow or other I ended up with a second-hand, burgundy Renault, to get me to university and back. Though all of 1108cc, it had four-wheel disc brakes and fantastic seats. In all it was snazzy. I fitted the then fashionable chrome bumper bar equipped with the obligatory driving lights. Also, a sports muffler. Most everyone loves their first car and I was no different. I joined the Renault Car Club and embraced club motor racing, up to the level of hill climbs and the dirt short circuit at Amaroo. The only thing I won was a club economy run which says a fair bit about my frugality rather than skill.
The Renault Car Club at this time was seriously flash. (It still is a fine car club.) Among other things it ran the Regie Renault, a round of the State rally championship. A prominent member, Bruce Collier, was the gun rally driver in the club and the state, in a R8 Gordini. Bob Watson won the National Championship in 1970, also in a Gordini. There was a guy by the name of Ed Irwin in the club whose yellow R8 Gordini was dramatically quick around the dirt short circuit at Amaroo and in rallies (he still owns the car). The Gordinis were successful rally cars in Europe. For me the very word ‘Gordini’ invoked images of unsurpassed speed and charisma.
Lusting after an R8 Gordini from 1971, I finally bought a 1967 R1135 47-years later. I like to boast about its skinny competition history so bear with me. Mal McPherson, no less than the Victorian rally champion, drove it at least once in a Calder rallycross event back in the day. The photo of that event is a bit scary, at least for someone who now owns the car. (See below). Perhaps I should point out that my Gordini was the subject of a complete bare metal restoration in 2016 overseen by Perth’s Renault guru, Ray Watson.
The R8 Gordini thing, however, was only one part of my adolescent obsession. There was another. Just as the more powerful Toranas started to dominate the local rally scene, in Europe the Renault Alpine A110 became a successful rally car. They won the Monte Carlo in 1971. In 1973 they came first, second and third. Renault Australia brought one to Australia in 1974 for displaying in showrooms. Bob Watson drove it in the 1974 Don Capasco Rally.
Whereas the Gordini was boxy and tiny, the Alpine was sleek and tiny. A thing of beauty. And duly added to my lust list.
Just as I was organising the purchase of my Gordini from far away Perth in 2018, Renault announced that a reprise version of the Alpine A110 was to be sold in Australia. With the same model designation. The reports from Europe were unfailingly positive. For a while I considered aborting the Gordini purchase and buying one. One day an attractive female salesperson at McCarrolls Renault in Artarmon, NSW, very nearly had me signing up on the waiting list. In the end I stayed with buying the Gordini and don’t regret it. It is, I hope, my forever car.
As the above suggests, that slightly faded 1967 R10 had turned me into a Renault tragic for life. In 2022, after nine years of completely reliable and enjoyable ownership, my daily driver, a Megane RS265, was showing signs of ECU fatigue and I began to ponder the offerings on Carsales. A 2021 Alpine A110S bobbed up but was too pricey for me. The owner also expected the purchaser to buy the car before clearing its title from financial encumbrances, which was weird. Still, I inspected the car in Bowral. It was indeed very nice, but I let the matter rest.
Nearly a year later, just as my friend Eddy and I were preparing the Gordini for the 2023 French Car Day in his driveway, (BTW, did I mention that it ultimately got the gong for best Gordini of the show?) my phone rang. It was the Alpine owner. The anticipated sale had not gone through. Was I still interested in the car? Well, sort of. For one thing he’d sorted out the title.
To cut a long story short, I did buy the Alpine, at a reduced price. I never thought of buying a comparable Porsche, a Cayman or whatever. I assumed that they were much more expensive and as an anti-fascist historian, even 80-years after World War Two, I still have reservations about buying cars made in Germany. Yes, I know that Louis Renault had his own issues with Nazi collaborationism.
The Alpine is, in short, a fine motor car. I never expected to own a car of this quality. It has considerable dynamic qualities. It goes like a rocket. The ‘S’ bit in its model nomenclature denotes a couple of performance enhancements over the cooking model A110. It has bigger brakes and more power, as well as a rortier exhaust note. The rear tyres are fatter than the front ones. Supposedly it will do 275km/h. Continuing Alpine’s commitment to the lightness equals speed formula it even has an optional black carbon fibre roof.
And it is a bit lower. This is not something I appreciate. Comparing it with Paul Rogerson’s car, it might be around 25mm (one inch) lower, particularly at the rear. The access road to our farm in the southern tablelands is fairly rough and steep. Because the Megane has coped with the access road over the years without complaining I had not thought about this as being a concern. Unless one exercises due care my Alpine even scrapes a little on the ramps in city apartment blocks. This is the only thing I dislike about my car.
Of course, it is a track car. In the much larger European market over 4000 Alpines were sold in 2023 and it became the most popular two-seater sports car in Europe. One may assume that a goodly number end up at track days.
Such thoughts led me to entering the recent 2024 RCCA/Renotech track day at Sydney Motor Sports Park. Apart from anything else, obviously it is frustrating to own a fast car without being able to stretch its legs. So I have now done 200km/h down Brabham straight. All good. And I have careered around corners, not always especially elegantly and with one small miscue. Jean-Paul Ragnotti, I am not and never was. The Getrag dual clutch automatic transmission is brilliant the way it anticipates the right gear for the slower corners like Bond Bend, shuffling back under heavy braking. The paddles were not needed. The roar the turbocharged 1.8-litre motor makes at high revs and in Sport mode was wonderful. The acceleration was astounding. Not that this meant I set fastest time of the day. Around the full Gardner Grand Prix circuit the average young punter, in a hot Megane or Clio is just so fast, as well as occasionally discourteous. (A certain yahoo-Henry P-Plater in a yellow Mk4 Megane had obviously missed the drivers’ briefing where it was made clear that overtaking in corners was forbidden at this very amateur level of motor sport.)
In the final resort I now own a car from both of the two most famous tuning firms of France: Gordini and Alpine. I am unsure whether this is enough justification for owning an impractical but beautiful car, but it will do for now.
CONFESSIONS OF AN ALPINE A110 OWNER
by Paul Rogerson
My interest in the Alpine A110 goes back to the original model from the 1970s. I remember seeing a beautiful colour shot of an ex-works Alpine A110 thundering through a forest outside of Canberra on the cover of the July, 1974 issue of Sports Car World. Several weeks later I saw the actual car on display at the Sydney International Motor Show.
The organic beauty of the original A110 was breath-taking. Forget your Porsche 911s or Dino 246s, the A110 in rally livery made a big impression on a teenage boy. Still, over the intervening years I thought little of the A110, except when I saw photos of the original in magazines or books.
My interest was piqued when I read a short article in Motor Sport that indicated Renault was about to revive the Alpine brand and create a new A110. When the new version of the A110 was revealed, I was impressed with its styling and all road reports I read about the car were positive. I could hear a little voice saying, ‘If not now, when?’ so in 2021, during one of several COVID lockdowns when people just bought stuff for the heck of it, I bought an Alpine A110.
When Peter Robinson asked me why I bought the A110 I felt I could not admit that I had a lifelong passion for Alpines or French cars in general, nor could I claim the incredible handling and power-to-weight ratio suited my driving style. The truth is more prosaic – it was a vanity purchase. I wanted a car that said ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ without the brashness (or price tag) of a Lamborghini.
I could have bought a Porsche Boxster, a perfectly suitable and fun car, but living on the lower North Shore of Sydney I nicknamed the Boxster the ‘Mosman MX-5’. I wanted something that stood out from the crowd. The A110 does just that.
The number of comments from passers-by whenever I park the car always delights me. For those contemplating an Alpine A110 thinking it might be a chick magnet, I am sad to report that so far only one young lady has enthused about the car. She was impressed but insisted on addressing me as ‘Sir’. Maybe I reminded her of her high school principal…. Otherwise, all the admirers are older men who no doubt remember the original and know how to correctly pronounce the name.
The styling of the A110 is its most arresting feature. The Alpine designers captured the essence of the original yet in a modern guise that avoided it being a pastiche. My car is one of the original 60 Premiere editions imported to Australia in 2019. The car is in the hero colour of Alpine blue.
The engine is the mid-mounted 185kW (the S is 215kW) 1.8 litre, four-cylinder turbo from the Renault Megane. Acceleration is impressive, as is the handling and the braking. The ride is stiff and on some of Sydney’s poorly maintained roads can be a bit harsh. On good roads the Alpine is a joy to drive. I have not ventured onto a racetrack, and probably never will, but I imagine the handling would be even more impressive.
The Alpine is surprisingly analogue for such an expensive car and has a curious blend of analogue and digital features. There are digital elements that should be analogue and there is a lack of digital enhancements that would improve the car.
The most obvious shortcoming is the lack of a manual transmission. Sportscars are more enjoyable when they have a good manual gearbox coupled with a short clutch travel. One of the Alpine engineers, David Twohig, explains the lack of a manual transmission in his book, Inside the Machine (Veloce Publishing, 2022). Twohig writes that the engine was mated to a Getrag double-clutch gearbox in the interest of saving weight. Also, the Alpine has paddle-shift gear controls behind the steering wheel designed to assist the ‘less expert’ driver (i.e. me).
Twohig explains that normal drivers do not have the reflexes and skills of racing drivers or professional test drivers so a paddle-shift automatic assists the driver to better enjoy the car, especially on a racetrack, rather than having to cope with a manual. The paddle-shift is easier to use and more enjoyable than on other such cars I have driven. Maybe, but I still prefer a good manual box.
The designers of the Alpine must be graduates from the ‘Colin Chapman School of Automotive Engineering’ when it comes to weight saving. Chapman was quoted as saying that to make cars go faster ‘simplify, then add lightness’. The design team at Alpine got religion on that bit. Iterations after my car have reduced weight further with the use of carbon fibre panels and other lightweight materials.
However, the emphasis on lightness has many consequences. The most fundamental for Australian buyers is that Renault stopped importing the Alpine in late 2021 because of a change in the Australian Design Rules. ADR 85, introduced from November 2021, mandated that all cars manufactured after 2017 had to have side curtain airbags. Renault refused to comply on the grounds of increased weight and re-engineering costs just for the Australian market. Existing cars are not required to have them retro-fitted.
There are other slightly annoying examples of weight saving such as a lack of a glovebox, no door pockets, and no proper storage in the central console for items like phones, wallets, or glasses. There is only one cup holder and judging by its diameter all Alpine drivers are expected to be macchiato drinkers.
What is more inconvenient is the lack of some modern safety features. For example, there is no reversing camera yet the visibility out the rear window is a bit like looking through a mail slot. Also, there are no blind spot monitors in the external mirrors. Being a small coupe, visibility is limited so you need to keep your wits about you when in traffic and changing lanes.
Internally, the seats are comfortable and body hugging although there is no height adjustment available except with the use of a spanner. Another analogue touch.
The instrument panel is clear and easy to read but the sound system, phone connection, map are all located on a touch screen tablet in the middle of the dashboard. This is not easy to use when the car is in motion. In the interests of safety, I set up what I want to listen to before I set off. There is a voice activation function to operate the sound system etc. while the car is moving but it does not seem to recognise anything I say. I have even tried speaking to it with an outrageous French accent, but nothing works. It is probably my lack of proficiency in operating the system rather than the car.
The car is relatively trouble-free and only requires one service per year which can be a bit pricey. However, I recently received a factory recall for something to do with the fuel system and a few hours after I picked up the car, I got a warning light saying there was an electrical failure. The car went into go slow mode and then stopped altogether blocking peak hour traffic in Sydney’s CBD.
Fortunately, a policeman came to my aid and called the emergency breakdown team who were marvellous in towing me back to the dealer. It turned out that the problem was a faulty alternator and again, luckily for me, the car was still under warranty.
The Alpine A110 has given me a lot of driving pleasure and the admiring comments from many people only adds to the enjoyment. My conclusion on the Alpine? It is a bit like a French woman: elegant and beautiful to look at but occasionally temperamental and high maintenance.
