Alpine A110 Successor Gets New Own Premium Brand Platform

According to the head of Renault, Alpine's «trolley» will form the basis of several «green» cars of the French brand.

The French brand Alpine (owned by Renault Group) and the British brand Lotus (part of the Geely holding) announced plans to jointly develop new all-electric sports cars at the beginning of 2021: a corresponding memorandum of understanding was signed. However, subsequently, the manufacturers decided to stop cooperation: the official announcement of this «gap» was received about a month ago.

In the photo: the current Alpine A110 E-ternité sports car

Initially it was assumed that the successor to the Alpine A110 sports car will receive a modular E-Sports platform with various battery layout options, developed by Lotus. This «trolley» was introduced in the fall of 2021, it will be based on the Lotus Type 135 sports car, which is the ideological successor to the previously discontinued Elise model.

After it became known about the termination of the partnership between Alpine and Lotus, the question remained as to which platform will be the basis of the sports car that will replace the current Alpine A110. There were even suggestions on the Web that the novelty would be excluded from the plan to “green” the French brand altogether. These questions were answered by Renault CEO Luca de Meo during an interview with Autocar. current sports car Alpine A110 E-ternité

According to him, the Alpine A110 successor is still in the pipeline and is currently in development. Luca de Meo said that the model will receive some kind of new platform, which will be developed by Alpine engineers. The corresponding decision was made as a result of a long discussion. He added that other electric vehicles of the brand would subsequently be based on this “trolley”, however, he did not specify whether they would also be sports cars. Lotus was «friendly» and added that the companies retained the «opportunity to work together again» going forward.

As the head of Alpine Laurent Rossi noted, the premium French brand plans to release five cars over the next five years. The Renault 5-based A290 hot hatch will be the first-born next year, followed by the GT X-Over compact crossover in 2025. An electric sports car is slated for 2026, with two larger SUVs expected later, with the US as the main market. />

Obviously, the development of a new proprietary platform will significantly increase the cost of developing a new French brand sports car. As a result, this is likely to affect the final cost of a niche model. The fact that the «trolley» will be used for other models will probably help to somewhat reduce this effect, that is, Alpine's total spending will decrease.

Earlier, Kolesa.ru published an image of how it could look like an Alpine A110 in a Targa body. It is expected that the front and rear of such a car would remain almost the same, and tangible changes are likely in the central part.