Renault Sport has been renamed the Alpine A110, which means the Alps, to become lighter and more agile.
Similar to announcing the death of the Renault Sport, the French manufacturer announced that Renault Sport no longer exists. She emphasized that the team that over the years has provided us with some of the best hot hatchbacks will henceforth be known as Alpine Cars, forming the newly established Alpine “Business Unit” of the automaker Renault.
On a practical level, there will not be much change on the production level because the 300-strong Renault Sport team is still present, but now it operates under the “Alpine” umbrella, which means the Alps. But it seems that from now on, thanks to the name change, the fast Renaults will wear Alpine badges instead of Renault Sport badges. But there is no news on what that means for the Megane RS….
The new Alpine business unit was announced in January and effectively combines the Alpine and Renault Sport operations units as well as Renault Motorsports, all working in one entity under the name Alpine. Heated, and another all-electric crossover.
Regarding these changes, Laurent Rossi, CEO of Alpine , said: “As part of the reorganization of the Renault group by brand, it was necessary for the various entities that make up the business unit to bear the Alpine name in order to embody the values and ambitions of the brand. Alpine aims to be a premium sports brand at the forefront of innovation and technology. The Alpine Cars unit with its expertise and experience in the field of sports cars serves as a key identity card in achieving our goals.”
Renault Sport with a new name and a new look
On the other hand, Renault announced a new product called the Renault Alpine A110 , the new Renault A110. Which is something completely different. Outwardly, it’s quite straightforward, a compact two-seat coupe in the mold of the Porsche Cayman and Audi TT. But under the new name A110, it is perhaps a better example of the virtuous circle’s approach to automotive engineering.
It’s light. Really light. Similar to the Lotus Lite, but with amenities, and armed for everyday driving operations that just got more fun, let’s take a look at this light body that weighs around 1,100kg – depending on which of the three versions you choose. The new Alpine is 300 kilograms less than all of its sports car rivals, which is nearly 25 percent lighter than the Porsche and Audi.
How did they do that? First, by re-designing it from the ground up while reducing weight, and using the method of streaking small things, meaning adding veins in the body, the Alpine became a sports car made of aluminum, equipped with an aluminum chassis, and has a relatively modest 1.8-liter engine with a four-cylinder turbocharger. .
Depending on whether you choose the base A110, and if you choose the sporty A110S, it is an advanced model, you have to choose between two engines, one producing 249 hp and the other producing 288 hp, and both versions produce 236 lb-ft of torque, and both versions boast 0 acceleration time -62 mph (0-100 km/h) in less than four seconds.
The Alpine engine is mounted behind the seats and drives the rear wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch Getrag gearbox – perhaps the only thing about this car that isn’t the lightest option possible, it’s the heaviest part.
Alpine chassis designers say: “We tried to follow the Colin Chapman principle, which still applies, so if we have less mass we can get moderate power, so we don’t need super wide tires or big, heavy brakes, etc.” Technician, Thierry Anneken. “We chased all the grams in the weight of the car, and tried to slim down everywhere, in every component, and every system to achieve that weight.”
Everywhere you look, he continued, you see this attention to detail. Take the rear wheel – there is no secondary brake caliper for the Electric Parking Brake (EPB), and it is now integrated into the primary brake itself. This saved us 2.5 kg of weight.
And getting the Brembo system to integrate their software into the Bosch ECU system rather than installing on a separate console with separate wires also saved another kilo. The brackets that hold the EPB cables and hoses are also made of aluminum, and in the end we were able to reduce the weight to give them better agility.
Can I buy a Renault in the USA?Peugeot, Citroën (PSA group), and Renault no longer sell anything in the United States. The only French cars you will see are on reruns of the TV show Columbo, in which the inspector drives a Peugeot 403 vintage cabriolet, or in The Mentalist, which briefly featured a Citroën DS, originally produced in 1955!
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