The electric A110’s design will be only subtly evolved from the current car, de Meo suggested. It “needs to look like” an A110, he said. “Porsche doesn’t make a square 911.”
More broadly, de Meo said “six or seven” uniquely positioned models would make up the Alpine range, including “some emotional pure sports cars”. Eighteen months ago, the brand said its intention was to launch seven models by 2030, starting with the new Alpine A290 hot hatchback.
The plan is to crown the range with a supercar and Alpine CEO Philippe Krief hinted that this will come towards the end of the “really ambitious” range roll-out and serve as the flagship of its “dream garage”.
Krief said the firm is “not yet” ready to launch the model, which will be developed at a new R&D centre born out of the firm’s soon-to-be-closed Formula 1 engine factory. He added that the launch of a supercar for the firm is a three-stage process: first a “brand exercise”, next a “tech showcase” and then the third one is “business”.
To that end, Alpine has shown off a pure concept supercar called the Alpenglow as a brand exercise in 2022, followed by a hydrogen-combustion technology showcase version of it earlier this year, the Alpenglow Hy4. The working title for the production model is Future Alpine Supercar.
Krief said Alpine wants to position itself as a “French sports specialist brand that also happens to be electric”, rather than call itself a pure EV maker.
Head of product Sovany Ang added that the firm wants to “retain accessibility” and will “target specific things and segments where it makes sense for us to be”, rather than try to be a volume or a premium car maker.
By
