Renault Alpine A110
If your only experience of the World Rally Championship
has been the televised coverage during the past
decade, you would be forgiven for thinking that it has always
been about ugly four wheel drive Japanese saloons taking
improbable angles around forest tracks with serious looking
Scandinavians at the wheels.
But it was not always this way. Before the Imprezas and
Evos, before the Group B Quattros and Lancias, before even
the rear wheel drive Escorts there was the Alpine A110. Few
rally cars have ever been so low, lithe and attractive; the
A110, together with the Lancia Stratos, remains the high
point in rally car aesthetics, before form was so brutally
dictated by function, and it is this quality that has gained
it a place on The List.
Like a Porsche 911, the engine is hung right out beyond
the rear axle, but unlike any of the later 911s, it is a
compact and relatively light four cylinder affair, which
makes the handling less overtly tail-led than its Teutonic
contemporary. The steel backbone chassis, similar to that of
an original Elan, is clothed in a curvaceous glass-fibre
body, which enables the low kerb weight of under 700 KGs (or
in modern terms, less than a Series 1 Elise.)
To drive, it is perhaps a 1970’s 911 that initial
acquaintance suggests that it most resembles, although there
is far less of a feeling that it wants to fling you
backwards into the nearest hedge than in the Porsche. It is
also more nimble, being around thirty percent lighter than a
contemporary 911, although the lack of power from the small
displacement engine means that it won’t be beating its
German rival in any drag races. There is, though, a delicacy
to the steering and chassis balance that more than makes up
for any power deficit, and explains why the Alpine is still
popular amongst historic rally drivers.
In some ways it has more in common with the much lauded
Elan, in the sense that the driver is able to feel exactly
what the tyres’ contact patches are doing and how weight
transfer can be utilised to eliminate understeer. The only
major difference is that the Alpine’s balance is slightly
less benign than the Lotus’, although this is more than
compensated for by the ability of the French car to put the
power down very early in corners – something afforded by the
rear biased weight distribution.
Trail brake deep into a corner to minimise any washing out of
the front end, and the back end will gently come round as
the car rotates on its axis. A quick correction of the
steering, a well-judged application of throttle and you are
drifting. Unlike in a high grip, modern rear wheel drive
car, this is not time wasting, show-off stuff – performed
correctly it is the quickest way round a corner in an A110,
with its skinny, high profile period tyres.
Being a rare, but not exotic competition car, the Alpine
is not an ostentatious display of one’s wealth – it is an
affirmation of one’s ability to distinguish the true great
from the merely good.
