Thank Frankel it's Friday: Alpine's long‑awaited return

But it was a stand with a name Goodwood’s youngest browsers would struggle even to remember to which I kept on returning. The last true Alpine rolled off the line in Dieppe some 22 years ago. This was the A610, a rear-engined, plastic bodied junior supercar powered by a turbocharged V6. It looked great, drove even better and nobody bought it. Why? Wrong badge I guess.

But the cars themselves were superb, in the main at least. Before the A610 came the GTA which was sweet handling and had a choice of a large normally aspirated engine or a smaller but more powerful turbo unit. It was essentially a development of the A310, the only Alpine I didn’t like, though those that know them say they’re great and I must have driven a bad example.

Which brings us to the A110, or, to be precise, the A110s. The new one sitting resplendent on the stand in Geneva I will come to in a minute, but the original is a car of which I have extremely fond memories. I expect my experience with the A110 was the polar opposite of that I had with the A310 because the car I drove was in ultimate 1600S specification with a hot 140bhp engine in the back, it was in fabulous condition and drove perfectly.

Indeed I was somewhat aghast having presumed that, first, there was no way all 6ft 4in of me was even going to fit in such a tiny car let alone do so comfortably and, second, even if I could it would feel slow and old, I discovered a simply sensational device. This was not a toy, a recreation with a novelty value that would shortly and surely soon wear off. It was a proper weapon. The more I drove it, the more I trusted it, the more I realised it was just as much fun to drive a short-wheelbase Porsche 911S, the closest conceptual rival I’d driven. In terms of exceeding expectations, it’s up there with the Ferrari Boxer.

What, then, of the new one? I like the looks but fear they may be a touch too retro, but the size of the car is perfect: diminutive, compact and muscular. The specification is impressive too: a kerb weight either just above or below 1100kg according to specification, which should spread the 252bhp output of its motor far and wide. 

I wasn’t the only one admiring either. I bumped into Gordon Murray and asked him what had most caught his eye at the show and he replied instantly, ‘the Alpine’. And if it’s good enough for him, it should be so for most of us.

Except, we’ve been here before. I remember as yesterday another show, another lightweight, mid-engined sportscar from another great name that had not produced a proper sportscar in years. And that was the Alfa Romeo 4C, a car which while charming in character, never delivered dynamically on the promise of its specification. So I’m going to reserve judgement on the Alpine, as I do for all cars, until I’ve driven it later in the year. All I’ll say for now is that if you believe in starting as you mean to go on, Alpine could hardly have given its resurrection a better chance of success.

Photography by Tom Shaxson