Woah, this 500bhp Pikes Peak racer is the most extreme Alpine ever

Sheesh, that's some serious aero addenda on the Alpine A110. It needs to be though, because this is the A110 Pikes Peak, a name that - surprise! - indicates this little French sports car is set to take on America’s really rather large hill climb.

Alpine isn’t just about to send a standard A110 R up the mountain in Colorado, so it's teamed up with its WEC partners Signatech to create a 500bhp monster.

That extra power is apparently available - in part - thanks to the new roof scoop forcing air into the 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine, while the bodykit includes a massive front splitter, side skirts, a rear diffuser and of course that giant rear wing. We’re loving those custom wheel covers and the sharp new lights too.

And heck, this is Alpine we’re talking about here, so even with all the extra carbon fibre added to the body, it has managed to reduce the kerbweight of the A110 R down to just 950kg. That’s mightily impressive given that the standard track-ready version weighs 1,082kg.

Frenchman Raphaël Astier will be the man tasked with getting the A110 Pikes Peak up the hill as fast as possible when the race rolls around in June, and because the car is closely related to the road-going version (not including the aero) it’s eligible for the production-based Time Attack 1 category.

Sadly, Alpine does refer to the A110 Pikes Peak as a “one-off” so it’s unlikely that wing will be appearing on the road car configurator any time soon. Shame.