The new Alpine topic

I am told its at Solihull tomorrow 10th May.

I am not able to go at such short notice so I look forward to them getting their demo cars so I can drive one at the same time.

Demo's and showroom cars should be arriving at dealers in July.

I'm planning on a launch event out of the Alpine Centre, in Manchester. I'll also be doing some test-drive events on some decent roads...maybe something like the peak district.

I'd love to do that with you guys and include some of your cars too.

Any other ideas?

Ian
Alpine Centre Manchester

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[stephendell]

I'm sure you will get a few cars along to make a nice display.

The standard one on track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_qHJ6ryBl8


The cup version testing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLpDxvd-E7U

interesting test in EVO (issue 249 "July") this month with a Cayman, Audi TT RS and the A110.
most enlightening has to be this page showing the advertised BHP/ Ton figures and the actual ones and the price of the Cayman.....

Doc - 14 May 2018 - 20-05.pdf

Hi all,
After fitting the new Crown expansion bottle to my A610 yesterday I went for a test drive over to Martins Renault in Winchester and what did I see in the showroom...

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Yours for only circa £55,000. That said the Manager seemed more interested in my A610. He even asked me if he could sit in it and start it up, he obviously has a thing for the older Alpine's...

Cheers, Barry

As well as all the other recent reviews that have scored very highly in AutoCar, Auto Express, Top Gear and PistonHeads, the new A110 has been given 5 stars by What Car!

It's also worth mentioning David Twohig also won an Engineering Hero award for the A110, at the recent AutoCar awards.

https://www.whatcar.com/alpine/a110/coupe/review/

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[stephendell]

Lots of great articles around at the moment and lots of praise for the car.

Have to say though very very poor of EVO to say almost too close to call and then give the narrowest of victories to a Cayman S with £25,000 yes £25K of options including adaptive damping, limited slip diff, carbon brakes and special wheels!!
And then say well it might have been a different result without the options. Well next time reject the £75k car offered and just ask for a standard one so it’s a level playing field.

And equally disappointing/daft of Alpine to stubbornly stick with the 249bhp engine in a £52,000 car when the £27k Megane has the 276bhp version of the same engine. Surely when they knew the A110 price point was going to be £52k Cayman S rather than base £43k Cayman they must have realised those extra 27 horses would have made all the difference in these road tests. Coming in at £10k more than the Porsche and not adding any extra power was just plain dumb. Did they not learn any lessons from the criminally underpowered spider which would have been a success with just 30bhp more. Hopefully they will remedy this in the Alpine very soon.

Rant over!

Lots of great articles around at the moment and lots of praise for the car.

Have to say though very very poor of EVO to say almost too close to call and then give the narrowest of victories to a Cayman S with £25,000 yes £25K of options including adaptive damping, limited slip diff, carbon brakes and special wheels!!
And then say well it might have been a different result without the options. Well next time reject the £75k car offered and just ask for a standard one so it’s a level playing field.

And equally disappointing/daft of Alpine to stubbornly stick with the 249bhp engine in a £52,000 car when the £27k Megane has the 276bhp version of the same engine. Surely when they knew the A110 price point was going to be £52k Cayman S rather than base £43k Cayman they must have realised those extra 27 horses would have made all the difference in these road tests. Coming in at £10k more than the Porsche and not adding any extra power was just plain dumb. Did they not learn any lessons from the criminally underpowered spider which would have been a success with just 30bhp more. Hopefully they will remedy this in the Alpine very soon.

Rant over!

Assume Porsche wouldn't let a standard car carry out the test for fear of showing up just how close it really is. Probably a rare thing on the road as well as I am sure most Porsche buyers tick a lot of option box's. Most interesting though has to be the lies about the BHP/ton figures given that Alpine come in conservative of the published figure.

I expect the reason the bhp/tonne figures were wrong is because they had the weight of the standard car.

£25k of extras will add a lot of weight.

If I but an Alpine I am going to buy as few options as possible and keep weight to a minimum.

Also I think the power to weight ration is fine, its refreshing to see a car being rated so highly without having to join in the bhp race.

Lots of great articles around at the moment and lots of praise for the car.

Have to say though very very poor of EVO to say almost too close to call and then give the narrowest of victories to a Cayman S with £25,000 yes £25K of options including adaptive damping, limited slip diff, carbon brakes and special wheels!!
And then say well it might have been a different result without the options. Well next time reject the £75k car offered and just ask for a standard one so it’s a level playing field.

And equally disappointing/daft of Alpine to stubbornly stick with the 249bhp engine in a £52,000 car when the £27k Megane has the 276bhp version of the same engine. Surely when they knew the A110 price point was going to be £52k Cayman S rather than base £43k Cayman they must have realised those extra 27 horses would have made all the difference in these road tests. Coming in at £10k more than the Porsche and not adding any extra power was just plain dumb. Did they not learn any lessons from the criminally underpowered spider which would have been a success with just 30bhp more. Hopefully they will remedy this in the Alpine very soon.

Rant over!

Having driven the A110 on track and some country roads, in a direct comparison with the Cayman, I can say the Alpine doesn't need any more power.

It isn't designed for a straight line drag or the highest top speed. It's supposed to be light and agile to give the most amount of fun possible and it definitely delivers. This is probably one of the main reasons Alpine made the refreshing decision you won't see any official information about any Nurburgring laptimes.

The A110 is aimed as a competitor to the Cayman, not the S, so I agree it was unfair to put it up against the higher BHP and using a car with so many performance options.

I think under the circumstances, the Alpine did phenomenally well against a £74k car and in a like for like test, there's absolutely no doubt our car would have been a clear leader in the review.

Ian
Alpine Centre Manchester

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I bet there has been some heated meeting, they are mad they have had the second opportunity to sort this small Hp issue and have now missed it and left the door open now for Porsche.
If they are reading this the what will happen next if they need the heads up, Porsche will get there hands on one and take it apart and will then produce a revised cayman which will have lost the Wt and have a similar suspension setup but be given the Porsche extra treatment because of bigger R&D team and money, so when Alpine put out the next version they will be ready and trumps Alpine again.
This is not rocket science just sales and marketing.

[stephendell]

The A110 is aimed as a competitor to the Cayman, not the S, so I agree it was unfair to put it up against the higher BHP and using a car with so many performance options.

Yes it was but unfortunately the price point came in £10k over and exactly Cayman S point which is what it will be compared too every time now. In practice most base Caymans will probably be specced above the price of an A110.

I expect the reason the bhp/tonne figures were wrong is because they had the weight of the standard car.

.

If you use a calculator and actually check the figures in the article you will see that a EVO can’t add up lol.

Even worse run the figures with the Megane’s 276bhp output and the Alpine would be a healthy 250bhp/tonne and then it would have been no contest.

Yes it was but unfortunately the price point came in £10k over and exactly Cayman S which is what it will be compared too every time now. In practice most base Caymans will probably be specced above the price of an A110.

Exactly, so you can't really look at a base spec Cayman compared to the Premiere Edition. I had a look at the Porsche configurator a few night ago and for a similar spec, you can easily get a lot closer to £60k for the Cayman


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[stephendell]

Well hopefully the price point of the pure will come in closer to the Cayman but a simple remap could have avoided this.

I suspect Alpine didn’t do this as they were holding back for their “S” model later down the line but I still find it a strange marketing decision to give their premium sorts car less output than the base RS Megane and less than the previous Alpine 25 years ago albeit with much less weight.

It’s frustrating as the car seems so nearly perfect otherwise and a tiny change would have tipped the balance.

At the end of the day guess it doesn’t really matter as they are all sold anyway but would have been great to have wiped the floor with the Porsche instead of a near miss.