It took Renault about three years to transform the 2012 Alpine A110-50 Concept into a production-friendly vehicle, but the new sports car was still far from being unveiled in 2016. Come 2017 and the French brand is finally ready to relaunch the Alpine brand, with the mid-engined coupe set to break cover at the Geneva Motor Show in March. As expected, the production model shares many design features with the concept cars Alpine showcased in recent years.
The most recent of them is dubbed Alpine Celebration Concept and broke cover ahead of the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was featured again a couple of weeks later in the year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and looked ready to hit the streets with minor modifications here and here.
As the name suggests, the Celebration Concept celebrates six decades since Alpine was established in Dieppe, France. Also, it pays homage to the classic 1961 -1973 Alpine A110, a sports car the French built from 1961 to 1977. Introduced as an evolution of the A108, the two-door "Berlinette" was designed by Giovanni Michelotti and used a rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. Among being Alpine’s most iconic model, the A110 was also a successful race car, winning the manufacturer’s title at the end of 1973 World Rally Championship.
All told, the new Alpine has a lot of heritage to build on.
Up until now, the production design was somewhat of a mystery, but a couple of photos launched in February 2017 confirm that it’s heavily based on the Celebration Concept. Alpine also confirmed that it will be called the A110, just like its 1960s predecessor.
Updated 02/28/2017: Alpine dropped the first two images of its new A110 sports car and confirmed the car will be making its official debut next week at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show.
Continue reading to learn more about the new Renault Alpine.
from Top Speed http://ift.tt/2lmtwif
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