2018 was a terrible year for motoring – but one car made it worthwhile

And yet 2018 was also the year we learned that the largely electric future that lies ahead of us is not something to be feared or dreaded. I’ve now driven some electric cars that I actually quite liked, and none more so than Jaguar’s brave I-Pace. I hope that JLR learns the lesson that Jaguar has always been at its best when leading, and not following. Trying to build standard saloons better than BMW and Mercedes-Benz do is always going to be tough for such a comparatively tiny concern, but blazing a trail, where engineering talent and design flair always count for more than mere money has been Jaguar’s strongest suit since the launch of the XK120 some 70 years ago.

But of all the cars I drove in 2018, finding a favourite does not require the usual agonising, weighing up talent, execution and fitness for purpose. In this, the year of the McLaren Senna and Ferrari Pista, the Aston Martin DB11 Superleggera and Bentley Continental GT, it was a small French car from a brand we’ve not heard of for a while that didn’t so much steal the show and run with it over the hills and far, far away. Fact is there have been very few years, vintage or otherwise, that have introduced me to a car I instinctively like more than the Alpine A110.

And that is despite the fact that there’s still plenty wrong with it. I wish they’d not gone all retro with its styling: it doesn’t look bad but all the truly great looking cars in history have had the courage to be bold and look forward, not backwards. And compared to an original A110, it’s not much of a looker at all. And even Alpine admits the car would have been better still with a manual gearbox option, and regret there’s not the demand in the marketplace to justify the cost of its inclusion.

But if you can live with that and other minor niggles such as rubbish DAB reception, unremarkable ventilation and a lack of on board storage space, the A110 won’t surprise and delight you, it will drop your jaw to the floor.

Here is a fifty grand car that’s more fun to drive than supercars costing twice, three or even four times as much. While they offer no hope of being able to use their excess horsepower more than fleetingly on the road, because the Alpine is so compact, its 248bhp can be used as a matter of course; and because it is so light its power to weight ratio is the same as a normal sports car with 350bhp. So it feels pretty quick too. The engine is an effervescent delight, the paddle shift gearbox its ideal sidekick. But it is in the way the car is set up – so soft, so supple and fluid – that there are lessons for every high-performance car manufacturer to learn. This is car to guide with your fingertips, a machine of the most exquisite delicacy, one configured not to release a lap time, but to intoxicate its owner with the simple joy of driving.

It is, in short, a car to remind you why you fell in love with driving in the first place. And where I come from, that’s about as good and important a job as any sportscar can do.