THE WORLD’S BEST WRITERS IN THE NEW CARS THAT MATTER
ALPINE A110R
Few ever tackle Porsche head-on, let alone its mesmerising Cayman GT4. Alpine has. We drive the serious – and ferociously expensive – A110R
The 300-mile test
NEW CAR MEETS REAL WORLD
T he Alpine A110 never has been a big-numbers car. In fact, a dis-tinct lack of them is part of the point – low weight, low power, little everything, relatively af-fordable. But threading through the hills north of Madrid in the new A110R, I do wonder if potential buyers might expect a few more numbers from the range’s hardcore halo.
Power from the R’s 1.8-litre turbo four is unchanged from A110S and GT siblings at 296bhp, weight falls only 34kg to – okay, blimey – 1082kg, aerodynamic downforce increases only 29kg at the rear versus the S and actually falls 33kg at the front for stability (read a little more under-steer) in faster corners.
In fact, pricing makes for the most impressive figure of all – £89,990 is £38k over the base A110 and £28k pricier than an A110 GT or S. A Porsche Cayman GT4 is £8k more affordable. Bof!, as a French person might exclaim.
But you quickly feel the key differentiator for this new model – its chassis, which brings more focus to a dou-ble-wishbone set-up that’s usually rather laissez-faire at managing roll and clinging onto grip.
Dampers are manually adjustable through 20 clicks (if you break out the spanners and jack up the car) and while the factory default is 10, Alpine’s engineers have got me in slightly firmer nine, their logic being it’s cold and a tad more heat in the tyres wouldn’t be a bad idea. They totally trust me though.
The R had seemed resolutely tough on patchwork tar-mac after we’d collected it from Jarama race circuit to the north-east of Madrid, but up here on liquorice-smooth tarmac it’s all precision directness and weightless agility – still an A110, but a much more serious kind of package.
We’re flying. You can carry speed and carve this chassis with a commitment simply not possible in lesser models, leaning on it hard and squeezing the performance like it’s the last of the lemons and there’s still a whole lot of torte to make. Ride quality is never an issue here. Roll? Not a lot.
What you do get a whole load of is stickiness from the semi-slick Michelin Cup 2 tyres, even in the cold condi-tions that put the Alpine people on edge earlier. The same rubber’s optional on the less track-focused A110S and comes in identical 215/40 R18 front, 245/40 R18 rear sizes.
Crucially, though, the S chassis wasn’t developed around the Cup 2s, where the R’s has been. It was overseen by Philippe Merimee (a Renault Sport veteran with some cracking hot hatches
