Alpine A110 Review: A Great Sports Car

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Alpine is a french brand that has produced sports cars from the mid 50s to the mid 90s. The cars were based on Renault mechanicals and had fiberglass bodies.
They were taken over by Renault in the early 70s and produced models until 1996.
The original A110 came out in the early 60s and was a successful rally car, winning the very first constructors' world championship in 1973.
Fast forward 45 years and we're driving the new Alpine A110. What is it? It's a small, light sports car with a 1.8l Turbo engine.
The car is about 4.2m in length and 1.8m in width, which for a sportscar in 2019 is tiny. However, this also means it's light. The car weighs under 1100kg empty. Coupled with the 252hp from the 1.8 Turbo makes for some impressive figures of 0-100kph in 4.5s and a top speed of 250kph.
The engine pulls well at low revs and has a very linear power delivery. Like most modern turbo engines it is almost too linear for my taste. But the predictability of a linear power delivery is probably preferable in a focused sports car such as this.
The power delivery is accompanied by a nice and raunchy note from the exhaust, which manages to add a great soundtrack without being obnoxious.
The steering is direct and gives good feedback - it's exactly what you would expect from such a sports car.
The brakes are good (the car is light) but opposed to most modern cars where the brakes are super sensitive you have to mash the pedal on the A110 if you want to brake hard. In spirited driving and on a track this will give you great amount of feel and control over the breaking force, but in normal driving it takes some getting used to.
The gearbox is a 7-speed dual clutch that is controlled by metal paddles behind the steering wheel (which stay in place) and it works perfectly. It's fast and smooth.
However, I feel that the second and especially 3rd gear are a bit long as it takes quite a long time to rev them out.
Handling. As you would expect, this little rocket handles absolutely great. Even though it's on relatively narrow tires for a sportscar the car has plenty of traction. In fact, in my opinion it has too much traction to have a bit of fun on normal roads. It is almost impossible to get the back out without provoking it really badly. This is too serious of a sportscar for that. The car was built to be as fast as possible and sliding about is not fast.
The car has 3 driving modes: Normal, Sport and Track. Personally, I find that even in Sport mode the traction control is too invasive, cutting power way too early and too harshly.
The best way to drive the A110 spiritedly is Track Mode. The traction control is still enabled but dialed way back. This way, you can have some fun and survive.
In Track mode, you have to use the paddles to shift as the car will not shift automatically. It also does not shift into a higher gear if you hit the limiter, which is good. Instead you get a helpful little beep telling you it's time to shift up.
So all in all the Alpine A110 is a great car to drive. It delivers on its lightweight sports car promises. So, what are the drawbacks?
Being french, you'd expect the build quality to not be that great. But it actually is. The car feels very well put together and very tight. Yes there are lots of hard plastic in the interior. At least some of them are in the exterior color. And plastic is light, which is this car's main USP. However,
There are no door pockets and there is no glove box. There is also no space between the seats.
In general this little car does not offer a lot of cargo space. It has a combined total of 200l of trunk space. That is divided into a trunk at the back and a frunk at the front. The one at the front is so shallow that on a hot day whatever you put in there will be well and truly baked. The rear trunk is less shallow than the frunk but it sits right behind the engine and above the exhaust, so stuff is going to get cooked in there year-round.
I know, these are small niggles for such a small car that is not primarily meant to be practical. But it's a bit of a shame because the car could easily be daily-driven as the suspension is firm but not uncomfortable and both the engine and gearbox are smooth and civilized.
The original A110 was designed by Giovanni Michelotti. The new version obviously was too. In my opinion they went a bit too far with the retro design. The car looks almost exactly what you would expect if the old car were to be put into production today. And it looks good, I love the flared wheel arches and that narrow back end. I just wish the front was a little more aggressive.
The A110 is a great car. I can only applaud Renault for bringing this to the market well knowing that such a niche sport car is probably not going to ever be profitable. Like it or not, we live in the age of the SUV, so having a pure sports car like the Alpine 110 being released is a welcome change.