Alpine A110 Review 2024

The Alpine A110 might have seemed like an automotive second coming when it arrived a few years ago. Car enthusiasts and journalists alike raved about this pretty new sports car as a simple, puristic and refreshingly engaging driver's car that doesn't need to be driven at silly speeds to be fun. Our Alpine A110 review shows it's worthy of praise but also not quite perfection.

Renault revived the sporting Alpine brand a few years ago, dusting off a model badge last tacked to the back of a car in 1977. It then had its designers create a modern interpretation of the car that wore it, trawled its history books for evocative, bygone motorsport successes – a win in the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally and overall title win in the ’73 world rally championship, no less – and set about building a new sports car.

The automotive world, or at least the enthusiast portion of it, was in rapture. With its emphasis on low mass, fine balance and purity of response, the Alpine A110 is the lightweight foil to its bloated, overpowered sports car contemporaries. 

The result is, and remains, impressive. The lightest A110 is just 1098kg, making it an absolute featherweight among its sports car rivals, while its predecessor’s history gives the new A110 an admirable back story. Thing is, back in ‘71 a win at the Monte Carlo Rally genuinely was front page news, today the only way an Alpine would make the front pages – or, these days, go viral - is if a Kardashian crashed one in Casino Square.

All of that makes the Alpine A110 a very tough sell, as the sports car market is arguably more about being seen and brand image than real purist driver thrills these days. You just need to look at Lotus sales figures to appreciate that. 

It’s a committed buyer who picks this French unknown over the default Porsche, then, but that rather closed, knowledgeable shop is arguably part of the Alpine A110’s allure to its core buyers.

Indeed, even the name needs explaining, pronounced ‘Alpeen’, as opposed to how you might describe the scent of a toilet freshener, and owners will likely enjoy telling you exactly how to say it.  

The brochure for the A110 extols things like compactness, weight distribution and power to weight ratios, as well as its predecessor’s rallying exploits and successes, but for all but a handful of enthusiasts out there that’s pretty much irrelevant, particularly if you’re used to current sports cars.

It's a car you might graduate up to from a focussed hot hatch, or hugely compromised Caterham, rather than sell your Porsche Cayman, BMW Z4 or Audi TT for. All of which makes that market position, and pricing a tricky sell, however brilliant it might prove on your favourite road. 

And it is brilliant, the A110’s balance is extraordinary, the chassis people at Alpine making it supple and controlled, which makes it perfect the choppy tarmac that passes for roads in the UK.

The engine might be modest in its output, but with so little mass to shift it’s quick enough to be fun, but not so rapid that you’ve always one eye on the speedometer while puckering the seat material beneath you in fear of your licence.

As drivers we all love it, but, and it’s a big but, for all the fun it delivers it has to be compromised to do so, which is detrimental to its overall appeal for those but all the more committed card-carrying driving enthusiasts. 

Alpine added an S model a couple of years after the standard A110’s 2017 debut, it gaining some power, more grip and stiffer, more focussed suspension. Its reception has been mixed, as in doing what all other sports car firms do, and have been doing for years, Alpine has somewhat diluted the A110’s raison d’etre with its range-topping model. That was fixed with the Legende GT car which has the S model's engine, but with the standard car's softer suspension. 

Whether it’s the poor quality of French roads, or the possibility that all French chassis engineers were all brought home from the maternity units via ploughed fields in fine-riding 2CVs, there’s no denying the extraordinarily fine balance of ride and handling that Alpine has achieved with the A110.

It’s taut and controlled, yet supple, its light weight allowing the chassis to be tuned magnificently, with feel and finesse that shows up all but of handful of its rivals as brittle, poor-riding, inaccurate and lacking in feel.

It’s that feel, through the light, accurate steering, the way the car seems to pivot under you in the centre, and the ability all that affords you to enjoy the engine’s performance via the chassis that makes the A110 so appealing to those people who actually relish driving. 

The range-topping A110S actually removes a bit of that, as with its additional power comes more rubber on the road to heighten the grip levels, while a slight drop in the suspension height and stiffening up of the anti-roll bars does remove some of the lower-powered car’s beautifully balanced, poised set-up, and hence appeal, behind the wheel.   

Being so lightweight means Alpine can be modest with its power output, so the standard A110 makes do with 252PS, a more powerful S model upping that to 292PS. In both that power is produced by a 1.8-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine, that also sees service in Renault’s more powerful Renaultsport Clios and Meganes. 

There’s nothing wrong with that though, as sports cars more often than not borrow engines from humbler, bigger volume models, and the performance the Alpine A110 delivers is impressive enough with a 0-62mph time of 4.5 seconds (4.4 in the S), both quicker than a Porsche Cayman S here.

There’s plenty of low-rev response, too, and Alpine have made it sound fantastic, with plenty of drama, particularly with the optional sports exhaust.

Alpine, sadly, but quite justifiably, cites tiny likely sales volumes and the expense of developing a manual transmission as preventing them offering a manual, however much it would certainly add to the driving experience.

Renault, and by extension, Alpine, has a commendable safety record. The A110’s nature, and small volume means it’s unlikely to ever be independently crash tested by organisations like Euro NCAP.

There’s no Isofix option on the passenger seat, though, should you be doing the pre-school run in it. Its structure might be light, but it’s stiff and strong, while the agility it has might just help you avoid an accident in the first place.

Tiny as the boots capacities are, you’ll not be able to stick a trailer behind it for your luggage, even if you wanted to. Borrow a friend’s car if you need anything towing…

If that overall rating above were to be weighted heavily in relation to practicality then the Alpine A110 would struggle to achieve anything like how we’ve scored it.

It’s a two-seat, mid-engined, driver-focussed sports car, so people buying it will do so with the expectation of some compromises in practicality here. Forget collecting Billy bookcases in it from IKEA, then, even if being mid-engined means two boots, a shallow 96 litre one up front – about the height of a decent paperback deep, as it happens – and a more conventional 100 litre boot in the rear.

That front one will take a squashy sports bag or two, or a carry-on suitcase. The rear a similar amount, though the back boot’s access is hampered by the narrow opening. Stowage space inside is absolutely non-existent with no door bins or even a glovebox.

Alpine will lighten your wallet by £460 for a hopeless ‘cargo net and storage case’ for the interior. Don’t bother, just travel light, or wear some cargo pants (actually, please don’t).

The Alpine A110's exterior dimensions make it 4181mm long, 1798mm wide and 1248mm tall. Aside from the tiny Mazda MX-5 everyday sports cars don't get much smaller than this. 

The lack of practicality we can sort of forgive given its focus, though not if it actually results in you buying cargo pants. Where the A110 falls down significantly is in the finish inside.

For a car a few quid short of £50,000 at a starting level it’s just not good enough. We get the lightweight mantra, understand a bit of parts sharing, but while some elements of the A110’s interior delight – the seating position, some evidence of carbon fibre and aluminium – the rest of it is more than a little bit disappointing. 

Given it’s a car that can list something like the Audi TT as a rival, or a Porsche Cayman, we reckon that most buyers might have conceded a 50kg increase in the kerbweight for more substantial, quality feeling plastics around the cabin. 

Like those plastics, the infotainment is lifted directly from Renault’s parts shelves in France, and, again, it’s merde.

The central 7-inch touch screen comes with smartphone mirroring for iOS and Android devices, as well as GPS and European mapping, but it’s a bit fiddly and frustratingly slow in its operation. There’s USB and Bluetooth connectivity and a standard audio system, with the option of lightweight or premium audio systems, depending on which A110 you’ve bought, be it Pure, Legende or S.

You should be having too much fun driving it to worry about the poor infotainment interface, which is just as well, as even changing something as simple as the volume is problematic. 

Alpine’s massive, and admirable, commitment to driver focus and weight that means some serious compromises if you’re buying an A110 as a daily driver, which significantly limits its potential audience. With a starting price just a few pounds shy of £50,000 for the Pure model it’s at the upper end of the marketplace, too.

Indeed, that is around £14,000 more than an entry-level Audi TT, or £10,000 more than a TT of similar power, and you’ll not need to explain what the Audi is every time anyone asks about it. More significantly is that £50,000 is enough to buy you a Porsche Cayman. That’s a seriously tough rival, with huge brand cachet. 

The drive needs to be exemplary, then, as the quality of the materials, and the operation of the infotainment just isn’t in the same league as its potential rivals, and that’s at the entry-level Pure price point. Three other trims are offered, the Legende, the GT and that more powerful A110S, which gets more power to help justify its £60,000 list price. There's also various special editions commanding even more. 

Pure model buyers are likely to add a number of options to their cars, too, with things like an Active Sports Exhaust requiring nearly £1400 extra, any colour other than white being a cost option, while it’d be a shame not to have the excellent carbon-backed Sabelt bucket seats, for £1650.

Legende gains a Focal audio system, larger alloy wheels, aluminium pedals and desirable front and rear parking sensors with a reversing camera over the Pure for £4,000 more. 

The A110S gains not just more power for its inflated price, but improved brakes, that switchable sports exhaust and Alpine Telematics. Oddly, though, the range-topping S only gets front and rear parking sensors, the reversing camera of the Legende not even being available optionally. 

With a small engine working not very hard to power it, the fuel economy on the official combined consumption cycle, tested to the newer, tougher WLTP regulations, is 39.2mpg for the Pure and Legende, and 38.6mpg for the A110S.

The reality will be a bit less, as it’s a car that begs to be driven pretty enthusiastically, but if you were to be mixing some mundane motoring with the fun, it’ll be surprisingly economical. 

CO2 emissions of 162g/km for the lower power models is good, too, while the S’s additional power only adds 1g/km to that, so you’ll pay the same annual road tax, regardless of which model you pick.

All will sit in group 44 and above for insurance, which is comparable to its rivals, so depending on your driving record, and where you live/park it, it’s not going to be punitively expensive.

It’s too new to get a real handle on long-term reliability, but servicing shouldn’t be too expensive, particularly given the majority of the parts are Renault sourced, and being light things like brakes and tyres should wear slower than its weightier rivals

A110 Pure, A110 Legende (now GT) and A110 S make up the available range, the Premiere Edition models that introduced it being built in limited numbers and they’re all gone. There's also various special editions. 

The Alpine A110 Pure makes the most sense, as it has all the performance you need, and the headline-grabbing lightest weight, but that Legende (just try saying that without affecting a French lilt) model does add some kit that’s desirable.

The Alpine A110 Legende/GT includes a reversing camera, better standard audio, larger 18-inch wheels (the Pure having 17-inch alloy wheels) and some trim improvements inside, too. A Pure with the carbon backed bucket seats and a Sports Exhaust would do very nicely though, thank you. 

What’s trickier to recommend is the Alpine A110S, Alpine’s revisions making for a very slightly quicker car, but one that slightly robs the standard A110 of its core appeal – that being the supple, fine ride and detailed feel. Yes, it’s the flagship, with lower, stiffer suspension, more power, bigger brakes and more standard equipment, but it loses some of its finesse because of it.