The close collaboration allowed Alpines to be sold and maintained in France by normal Renault dealerships. With a competition weight for the car of around 620 kg (1,367 lb), the performance was excellent.Īlpine achieved increasing success in rallying, and by 1968 had been allocated the whole Renault competition budget. Starting with a 956 cc engine of 51 bhp (38 kW), the same chassis and body developed with relatively minor changes over the years to the stage where, by 1974, the little cars were handling 1800 cc engines developing 180 bhp (134 kW)+. This new car was the A110 Berlinette Tour de France, named after a successful run with the Alpine A108 in the 1962 event. Alpine was 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. It was the Willys Interlagos (berlineta, coupé and convertible).īy now the car's mechanicals were beginning to show their age in Europe.

In 1962, the A108 began to be produced also in Brazil, by Willys-Overland. Willys Interlagos Berlineta, the Brazilian A108 In January 2021, as part of a company revamp, Renault announced that Renault Sport was again merged into Alpine to form an Alpine business unit. The Alpine brand was relaunched with the 2017 introduction of the new Alpine A110. The Alpine competition department merged into Renault Sport in 1976 and the production of Alpine-badged models ceased in 1995. The company has been closely related to Renault through its history, and was bought by it in 1973. Jean Rédélé, the founder of Alpine, was originally a Dieppe garage proprietor who began to achieve success in motorsport with one of the few French cars that were produced just after the Second World War, the Renault 4CV. The Alpine car marque was created in 1954. The Société des Automobiles Alpine SAS, commonly known as Alpine ( French pronunciation: ), is a French manufacturer of racing and sports cars established in 1955.

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