The Alpine Ravage is a Group B-inspired A110 | GRR
Alpine A110 owners looking for inspiration to personalise their cracking little French coupe should look only in one direction: to whence the A110 came, across the Channel. Have you seen a more modern interpretation of a Gallic road-rallying rocket than this?
Despite plenty of lobbying, Alpine itself seems to be resisting rally tribute models, preferring instead to go the more luxury route. That has left the parc ferme open to budding Alpine tuning specialists such as Ravage Automobile.
It’s their car you see here, replete with all those essential French go-faster addenda: Group B-style wide body, straight-through exhaust, racing buckets and great big Cibie spotlights (LED these days of course).
For no apparent reason other than “Ravage” rhymes with “Mirage”, the French company behind the project has given the car the livery of the French fighter jet, taking the opportunity to photograph car and aircraft together. In fairness, the paint job does look dramatic and those wheels definitely get a thumbs up. They are forged three-piece 18-inchers inspired by the Gotti wheels used by original Alpine rally cars.
Other than the livery there appears no other connection between car and jet and certainly not under the bonnet: this first Ravage A110, based on the entry Pure version, is standard mechanically, which means the 1.8-litre turbo motor churns out 252PS (185kW) for 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds.
Something that looks like it should be tearing up the bitumen could be a little faster, and Ravage says it is looking at upping the power with the small run of A110 Group B tribute models it is hoping to build.
The extra body work is all fabricated in carbon-fibre and aluminium to keep the A110’s weight down to around a tonne, and thus preserve the A110’s renowned handling prowess. It comes at a cost though, and this first example is said to have set its owner back £100,000.
What is good with this French fledgling in the Alpine bespoking business is that they come across as true enthusiasts with unlimited flexibility. As they say, “Ravage has the crazy ambition to revive French bespoke creativity by collaborating with people sharing the same madness around the world. The friendly Ravage is open to new encounters and is happy to share its passion with mad people around the world.”
Bit mad then, but definitely our kinda guys...