Alpine isn’t ruling out putting a combustion engine in the next-gen A110

Alpine is busy working on a new, fully electric A110 sportscar to follow up the sublime second-gen version and continue a lineage that traces a line back to 1963. We’ve seen the prototype, learned about its split batteries, and have even seen a delightful sculpture (pictured above).

But the French carmaker hasn’t ruled out bolting in a combustion engine into the bones of the new car, either. It’s been widely reported that Alpine big boss Philippe Krief is open to the idea of a combustion-engined new A110 – to better sell it around the world – and UK boss Nicola Burnside told TopGear.com it’s not ruling anything out.

“The old A110 was brilliant, and so for us to bring out the electric version, it must be better,” she told TG. “We believe we have a magic combination where we are taking it up a level again.

“The nervousness with putting old technology back into that is you have to beat the existing one. We’re confident we can do that with the electric version. The platform [dubbed ‘APP’ for Alpine Performance Platform] can take many different combinations, it’s really flexible.

“We’ve not closed anything off, but we are fully committed to EV, because we genuinely believe that we can build something really special that takes it another level up from the current A110. And that was such a benchmark,” she added.

What do we know so far about the next-gen electric A110, then? That it’ll be super light for an electric sportscar – no figures have been confirmed but no more than 1,500kg – and that it’ll sit as low as the outgoing A110.

It’ll also have pretty much the same seating position too, as confirmed by Burnside, thanks to its battery pack split front and rear, around the driver. The idea is you’ll sit ‘in’ the car low down, rather than ‘on’ a battery pack underneath.

Those batteries are packaged inside that APP, itself constructed from extruded aluminium and furnished with double wishbone suspension, built to accommodate ‘multiple’ body styles (like a cabrio, or a 2+2), different battery packs, and either a rear-motor setup, or dual-motor with another smaller unit on the front axle. Primarily it’ll be RWD.

“Everyone asks me if the platform can take multiple powertrains and whether we’re going to do a combustion car,” said Burnside, “and my answer is ‘everyone needs to try the electric one’.

“Nothing’s confirmed at the moment. What is confirmed is we’re starting with electric. The brand has got a lot more room to grow, a lot more to say, but we’re going to stay true to appealing to people who are in that group of loving cars,” she added.

Hence why she’s easy with the bigger A390’s reportedly slower take-up. Alpine's overall sales have increased rather dramatically over the last few years, rising from 4,500-ish across the globe in 2024, to nearly 11,000 in 2025, to nearly 14k already in 2026.

Now. Alpine told TG told that around 75 per cent of those sales across 2025 and 2026 were for the punchy little A290. The A110 did around 2.6k last year and around a third of that this year (because it's now finished its production run), so when you take away those two, the rest is what the A390 has achieved.

And it's nearly all A290 in the UK too. Alpine shifted 2,694 cars by the end of September 2026 (a 193 per cent increase versus 2025), and around 90-95 per cent of them were of the little electric hatch. A few were of the A110, and the rest for the A390. So there's work to be done.

“It’s a different proposition,” she said about that crossover. “It’s about getting people to drive the car and understand it. The positioning we had for it at the beginning was a ‘racing car in a suit’, and generally that’s the right positioning.

“It’s not for everybody, and I think it’s about finding those right people who appreciate it and want it. And that is a more natural growth trajectory that we want for Alpine. We’re all comfortable with where it’s going at the moment.”

About that work. She points to the imminent launch of the range-topping, 470bhp GTS as the car that Alpine expects will take the lion’s share of A390 sales, at least over here. “We knew in the UK the GTS would be the one that people would really want, with the extra power.

“The UK seems to be a more ‘top trim’, sporty market, so we see the volume in the GTS. I can give you our rough mix aspirations – we’re expecting the GTS to be over 80 per cent mix versus the GT.”

Formula One will play its part in helping those sales, according to Burnside. “We’re continuing to invest in F1,” she said. “It’s doing a real halo job for us. If we’re honest, we’ve had a few years with the F1 team where it’s not been where we’ve wanted them to be.

“This year is a year where they’ve done a lot better. We’re suddenly being talked about a lot more,” she added. “In the UK, my vision is that we are the electric brand of choice for petrolheads. And that’s not everybody, and we’re absolutely fine with that.”