After a long while I got my act together to test the A110 - given that the end of next year is the end of production, I better act at some point soon, should I want to join Vlad in this venture as well 😉

Before I share my thoughts let me start with one of my favorite views of the car from inside - the sensual shoulder, as seen through the rear view mirror 👌🏻

A comfortable position is soon found and the seats are good for many hours on end - the petrol tank will go empty several times before your back is likely to complain. 

In spite of the minuscule size of the Alpine, it seems to cater well enough for larger passengers. At just over 1,9 meters I was comfortable in all dimensions and the interior didn’t feel at all cramped.  Same goes for the bucket seats in the S - comfortable at my anything but a marathon runner frame as well 😉

The car offers a digital instrument cluster ahead of you and a central touchscreen display next to it, as well as classical buttons for things like the aircon and the main driving relevant functions. There’s steering wheel buttons for the cruise control (although for some inexplicable reason you need to operate a button at the furthest reaches of the central console to activate it), as well as a Sport mode button (always on is the way to go I guess). Behind the steering wheel there’s a control panel to regulate the entertainment volume and activate voice commands. You cannot see it while driving, which is probably for the better - it appears like a bin parts special that’s definitely not a pleasure for the eyes. 

I would call that a negligible niggle and the rest of the interior is nice enough. The seats are both comfortable and nice looking, with some cool details like a Sabelt branding on the leather holders of the seatbelts. 

The central console is minimalist and for those looking for a P button for the gearbox, pressing N long enough does the job (let’s say this saved 15 grams of weight 😉).

The door panels seemingly come in the same color as the car’s exterior and the material is cool to the touch - so doesn’t feel like plastic. The door cards are nicely done in leather, and if you were wondering what country it’s from, there’s an indication there 🇫🇷

It’s an interior where one can comfortably spend many an hour and the fit and finish is good overall. The only downside is storage space. The car was developed in cooperation with Caterham and I cannot prevent myself from thinking that they took over responsibility for this area 😂 

There’s no glove box, no cup holders or anything else one got used to over the past decades. You have a small pocket for the key, a shelf for a mobile, together with the fitting charging ports, and if you order a storage package, a small box between the seat backs, which fits a one litre water bottle and the car’s documents. It technically has a boot at both front and back but both combined don’t amount to much and should you not wish to go for custom fitted Alpine luggage, nothing with a hard shell will fit. And everything in the rear boot gets very toasty. So very much a toothbrush and credit card kind of car…

The exterior is possessed of well thought through detailing and I find the overall proportions to be exquisitely judged. It’s well executed from all angles. 

At the same time it also manages to both clearly relate to its historical ancestor while being a modern design. Many a watch manufacture could learn from that 😁

The Alpine logo doesn’t hide an electric charging port - it’s the access to the minuscule fuel tank. 

On the bright side the light weight and small size conspire against the shares in oil companies you might hold appreciating through your heavy right foot. Apparently even heavy track use will not see a fuel consumption above 14 liters / 100 km. For my drive the consumption was about half of what the AMG would drink under similar use. And the tank might be small at a tad over 40 liters but the range not that different to the E63 with a tank twice the size. 

So, to the most important bit - driving the little beast. Like stated in the title, the first shock is how much space you have on the roads. Compared to pretty much any current car, you simply have options somehow forgotten over the past 15 years or so, where all cars seemed to have suffered a bout of elephantiasis. Even on a narrow country road you have plenty of space to change your line within your own lane - something that comes as a shock if you drive a modern sedan (let alone an SUV), or even something like a 992. The advantage of that being that you rarely need to slow down for oncoming traffic on country lanes, adding both enjoyment and speed. 

On an autobahn - probably as far away from the car’s comfort zone as you can get - it’s surprisingly adept. Compared to a typical German performance car the experience will be vastly different and even high quality German autobahns will reveal imperfections you never knew were there. Not in the way of making the car veer of course or in making themselves felt in the lower back, there’s just a raft of information filtered out in other modern cars that reaches you here. 

It does require some more concentration at speeds above 250 km/h but doing several hours at or near the top speed (if traffic and speed limits allow) appears eminently feasible. The S with the optional Aero pack would probably be more stable, still, with the added downforce calming things further. 

And braking from all speeds is a breeze - with no need to intervene to keep the chosen line. And in spite of its minuscule size it does an excellent job of getting slower traffic off the overtaking lane swiftly…

As nice as this is to know, I don’t think a single Alpine will be bought with this use case in mind. It’s on a decent country road or mountain pass that the car comes into its own (I think an annual pass for the Großglockner would be a must 😁).

It’s a combination between of the small size, allowing you many more possible cornering options, the mid-engined balance and a superbly judged handling, paired with a very informative steering. 

Covering the same stretch of curvy road again and again you quickly gain confidence to push further and further each time and are rewarded with high levels of satisfaction even at levels way below the limits. 

The four cylinder engine is a willing companion and while it doesn’t fully have the vocal range of engines with 6, 8, 10 or 12 cylinders the snap, crackle and pop you get at every downshift, paired with the induction right next to your left ear, does make the engine a nice complement to proceedings. 300bhp might sound like a joke nowadays but the power to weight ratio is good enough and at country road speeds you’d be hard pressed to see a difference in acceleration between the Alpine and something larger with twice the power without a stopwatch. 

Overall it is an invigorating experience and truly refreshing in the difference of approach to most of the competitors. Yes, it’s the darling of most car testers and the daily driver of people like Gordon Murray. There’s very sound reasons for that. 

And yes, in spite of the critical acclaim it’s a surprisingly rare beast - the annual production of Alpines Porsche manages in two days. Seems to be a fate shared with the Honda NSX of old (and that’s probably not the only similarity - and I mean that as high praise).

I’d say the automotive world is richer for the Alpine being a member and now I only need to find a way of ensuring that so is our garage at home 😉

As for the final shot, it was comical, how a Ferrari Purosangue looked like an articulated lorry (size wise) next to the Alpine (sadly didn’t manage to snap a shot while it was parallel). 

Hope you enjoyed the little review and am quite curious to read your opinions, too 👍🏻