The History
of the Alpine Berlinette 
The History
of the Alpine Berlinette You are the visitor to this site
Page by Mike Lewis, mikel@mmmltel.com
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Created Oct 21st 1995, last modified 2/9/2004 (killed dead links, added pics
of my car)
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Jean Redele, the founder of Alpine, was originally a Dieppe garage proprietor
who began to achieve considerable competition success in one of the few French
cars produced just after World War 2.
Using Renault 4CVs, he gained class wins in a number of major events, including
the Mille Miglia and Coupe des Alpes. As his experience with the little 4CV
built up, he incorporated many modifications, including for example, special
5 speed gear boxes replacing the original 3 speed unit. To provide a lighter
car he built a number of special versions with lightweight aluminium bodies:
he drove in these at Le Mans and Sebring with some success in the early 50s.
Encouraged by the development of these cars and consequent customer demand,
he founded the Societe Anonyme des Automobiles Alpine in 1954. The firm was
named Alpine after his Coupe des Alpes successes but in those days, La Manche
was very wide! Alpine did not realise that over in England the previous year,
Sunbeam had introduced a sports convertible derived from the Sunbeam Talbot
and called the Sunbeam Alpine. This naming problem was to cause problems for
Alpine throughout its history!
In 1955, he worked with the Chappe brothers to be amongst the pioneers of auto
glass fibre construction and produced a small coupe, based on 4CV mechanicals
and called the A106. It used the platform chassis of the original Renault 4CV.
The A106 achieved a number of successes through the 1950s and was joined by
a low and stylish cabriolet. Styling for this car was contracted to the Italian
designer Michelotti.
Under
the glassfibre body was a very stiff chassis based on a central tubular backbone
which was to be the hallmark of all Alpines built.
Alpine then took the Michelotti cabriolet design and developed a 2+2 closed
coupe (or 'berlinette') body for it: this became the A108,
built between 1958 and 1963. By now the car's mechanicals were beginning to
show their age. Alpine were already working closely with Renault and when the
Renault R8 saloon was introduced in 1962, Alpine redeveloped their chassis and
made a number of minor body changes to allow the use of R8 mechanicals.
This new car was the A110 Berlinette Tour de France, named after a successful
run with the A108 in the 1962 event. Starting with a 956cc engine of 51bhp,
the same chassis and body developed with relatively minor changes over the years
to the stage where, by 1974, the little car was handling 1800cc engines developing
180bhp+: with a competition weight for the car of around 12.5cwt(620Kg), performance
was very high!
Alpine achieved increasing success in rallying and by 1968, had been allocated
the whole Renault competition budget. The close collaboration allowed Alpines
to be sold and maintained in France by normal Renault dealerships. Real top
level success started in 1968 with outright wins in the Coupe des Alpes and
other international events. By this time the competition cars were fitted with
1440cc engines derived from the Renault R8 Gordini. Competition successes became
numerous, helped since Alpine were the first company fully to exploit the competition
parts homologation rules.
In 1971 Alpine achieved a 123 win in the Monte Carlo rally using cars with engines
derived from the Renault R16. In 1973, they repeated the 123 Monte Carlo result
and went on to win the World Rally championship outright, beating Porsche, Lancia
and Ford. During all of this time, production of the A110 increased and manufacturing
deals were struck for A110s and A108s with factories in a number of other countries
including Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Bulgaria.
1973 brought the international petrol crisis, which had profound effects on
many specialist car manufacturers worldwide. From a total Alpine production
of 1421 in 1972, the numbers of cars sold dropped to 957 in 1974 and the company
was bailed out via a takeover by Renault. Sadly for Alpine, their problems had
been compounded by the need for them to develop a replacement for the A110 and
launch the car just when European petrol prices leapt through the roof.
Through
the 1970s Alpine continued to campaign the A110 and later,
the A310 replacement car. However, to compete with Alpine's success, other manufacturers
developed increasingly special cars, notably the Lancia Stratos which was based
closely on the A110's size and rear engined concept, though incorporating a
Ferrari engine. Alpine's own cars, still based on the 1962 design and using
a surprising number of production parts, became increasingly uncompetitive.
In fact, having achieved the rally championship, and with Renault money now
fully behind them, Alpine had set their sights on a new target. The next aim
was to win at Le Mans. Renault had also taken over the Gordini tuning firm and
merged the two to form Renault Sport. A number of increasingly successful sports
racing cars appeared, culminating in the 1978 Le Mans win with the Alpine A442B.
This was fitted with a turbo charged engine: Alpine had been the first company
to run in and win an international rally with a turbo car as far back as 1972
when Jean Luc Therier took a specially modified A110 to victory on the Criterium
des Cevennes. The Alpine engineer who built this car's engine was Bernard Dudot.
He was later in the team which developed the Le Mans engines and headed Renault's
outstanding Formula one efforts before moving to Peugeot at the end of 1997.
Other successful Alpine recruits include Jean Todt, whose career began as a
codriver in the Alpine team, and who is now Ferrari's Formula 1 team manager.
and Jacques Cheinisse: after a successful driving career, he was competition
manager of Alpine in the 1970s, and became head of Renault production. Andrew
Cowan, now head of RalliArt who run Mitsubishi's WRC programme, was 5th on the
RAC Rally in 1970 using a works loaned A110! And of course Ove Anderson, who
was head of Team Toyota Europe, won a number of events when a works Alpine driver
including the 1971 Monte Carlo rally.
Alpine Renault continued to develop their range of models all through the 1980s.
The A310 developed into the GTA range, commencing with normally aspirated PRV
V6 engines, but later adding turbo charged variants. These were available from
Renault dealers in the UK and the country's motoring press are belatedly recognising
the GTA series as the 'great unsung supercar of the 1980s'
Sadly the last Alpine, the A610, rolled off the Dieppe line late in 1994, Renault
abandoning the Alpine name. This was always a problem in the UK market. Alpines
could not be sold in the UK under their own name because Sunbeam owned the trade
mark (because of the mid 50's Sunbeam Alpine Mk I). In the 1970s, for example
Dieppe were building modified Renault R5s for the world wide market.The rest
of the world knew them as R5 Alpines but in the UK they had to be renamed to
R5 Gordini!. Strangely enough with the numerous company takeovers that have
occurred, it is another French company, PSA (Peugot/Talbot/Citroen) who now
own the 'Alpine' trademark.
The Alpine factory in Dieppe continued to thrive: in the 1980s they built the
special R5 Turbo cars, following the rear engined formula they have always used.
They built all Clio Williams', Espaces and the Spider. The factory still proudly
bore its Alpine badges and built the mid engined Clio. Today, Dieppe is the
core plant for building Renault's specialist performance cars.
In France there is a large network of Alpine enthusiasts clubs: clubs exist
in many other countries including the UK
The French club, ABC, publish a colour glossy bi-monthly magazine While most
articles are in French, technical articles also have English text. Subscription
information and backnumbers from:
Mille Miles/Alpine Bretagne Club
2 Place Gombaud,
56230 Questembert
FRANCE
FAX (+33) 2 97 26 56 37
In total between 1962 and 1977, Alpine built around 7500 A110s and including
the estimated production from the licenced factories in the rest of the world,
total numbers were around 10,000. Alpines were fitted with many engine sizes
and there were a number of model variants. The largest volume made was of 1300cc
V85 cars: the higher powered 1300S and 1300G models were fitted with the Renault
R8 Gordini engine and formed the basis of Alpine's first international successes.
However, the majority of competition successes were achieved with the 1600S
model.
A110s were never imported officially into the UK despite lots of demand at the
time from competition drivers: the only ones which appeared were private imports
run successfully by drivers like Nigel Hollier and
Billy Coleman. Even Roger Clark and Pat Moss ran Alpines at some time in their
careers but at the time there probably were never more than a dozen in the UK.
Now there are at least 200!
Current UK price values (2002) for Alpine A110s range from around 12K pounds
for a well restored V85, through 20-25Kpounds for a genuine 1600S to 60-70K
pounds on the rare occasions when ex works rally cars with known histories appear
at auction. Of the total production, 1629 were 1600S's: of these it is said
that more than 2000 survive. (No, this is not a misprint: think about it and
take a look at my own car, pics below!)
Here are some photos of my own car.
Alpine themselves of course!
In Dieppe: The original Renault dealership, ETS Jean Redele, Rue Thiers,
and behind it the original Alpine factory in Avenue Pasteur, not involved in
Alpines any more, but a place of pilgrimage!
The main factory, built in the late 60s:
Alpine Renault, Avenue de Breaute - On the southern outskirts of Dieppe, turn
left off the N27.
Parts dept- Further east along the road from the main factory, in the trading
estate:
Alpine Renault
Service Apres-Vente
BP 37, 76201 Dieppe
Phone (+33) 2 35 82 37 21
And in Paris, Jean Redele's dealership, specialising in Alpine servicing:
Ets Jean Redele,
3 Boulevard Foch,
Epinay-sur-Seine.
(+33) 1 48 26 46 16
The following are people from whom I have personally had good service. Absence
of a name from the list does not mean that they are not useful contacts.
Dave Astbury
A110 Rally preparation, engine builds, gearbox builds, special parts.
The Cottage,The Watering Trough Bank, Maddeley Heath, Staffs, UK. Phone/Fax
(+44)1782 751140
Salv Sacco
Renault competition engine parts, cams, pistons and liners, distributor mods
etc
10 Burnsall Close, Pendeford, Wolverhampton WV9 5RU, UK. Phone (+44) 1902 785009
GBS
A110 parts including new trim, body parts, interior, remanufactured items etc
etc, catalogue.
Full catalogue on their web site here
5 Zac du Batailler, 83980 Le Lavandou, France Phone (+33) 4 94 71 59 71 Fax
(+33) 4 94 71 63 50
Meca Parts
Excellent A110, later Alpines and other Renault Gordini engine and suspension parts, catalogue.
Mecapart's web site here includes a
full catalogue of their Alpine and Renault parts in English and French, with
prices.
51 Avenue de Beregovoy,18000 Bourges, France Phone (+33) 2 48 50 70 01 Fax (+33)
2 48 21 13 98
Why not also have a look at these pages:
Club Alpine Renault (UK)
Avenue de Breaute "Des hommes, des autos,
une passion"
Juha Moisio's Unofficial
Renaultsport page
Eric Vonwiller's A310
Page
John Folly's
page on the later Alpines
Martin Jubb's Page
on Haldas and Aifab Gemini Tripmeters