'Hard, uncomfortable work': is the classic Alpine A110 Berlinette a proper hero car?

As far as I can work out, Lotus legend Colin Chapman never actually met Alpine founder Jean Rédélé. 

Their companies have collaborated – let’s ignore the ill-fated liaison of 2021 and focus on the considerably more successful combination of 1962 that saw a Lotus 23-derived chassis underpin the Alpine M63 endurance racer – but the men themselves never eyeballed each other.

Instead, their love of innovative engineering and lightweighting went in different directions: Chapman’s to F1, Rédélé’s to rallying and the A110 Berlinette. It doesn’t look like a traditional rally car, but 55 years ago rallying was very different – there wasn’t even a World Rally Championship until 1973. And yes, an A110 won it.

My initial adoration of Alpine came from later cars. Firstly the A610 that I wanted far more than whatever contemporary Porsche 911 it was invariably beaten by in car mag group tests of the early 1990s, and secondly the incredible more-snorkel-than-car A442 endurance racer – still to my eyes one of the greatest looking Le Mans cars.

As these cars trickled into my automotive consciousness, so I became aware of the A110. I saw one, aged about seven, on holiday in France and was so distracted that I trod on a recently discarded cigarette butt.

To be honest, French pavements of the time were more discarded cigarette than tarmac, but the memory stayed with me. As did the scar. Impossibly small, impossibly blue, a feisty little wheeled jab of a car with sputtering carbs and outsize presence for something half the size of a Renault 5.

It’d had nearly 15 years of practice to get it right before this 1600SX version came along as the swansong in 1976. This was it, everything Alpine knew about making a sports coupe. Puzzling then, why the pedals appear to be tucked up behind the bulkhead and my shoulder prevents the door from closing. The headrest is actually a shoulder rest and if I sit up straight my eyeline is filled with roof interior. I slouch with the insouciance of a recalcitrant Frenchman. Ah, now the car fits.

Around 7,500 were built, but only 387 were this final model, featuring the iconic ‘cassette tape’ 13in alloys and a 1,647cc longitudinal four cylinder running twin Weber 45s and developing 93bhp. Er, didn’t your mum tell you it’s rude to snigger?

This was probably the issue everyone else had. Jean-Claude Andruet, who took the A110 to that first WRC victory, told me “the Escorts had 80 or 100bhp more... but the A110’s agility and lightness made up for the lack of power”. Early production A110s, boasting 51bhp from a 1.1-litre Renault motor, weighed 620kg, and even this runout version was under 800kg. Weight is everything.

Well, not quite everything. It’s cantankerous to drive. Judging the clutch is a challenge when you’re contorted into a position you’re otherwise only likely to find yourself in if you follow a four-year-old into a softplay maze, and the engine apparently models itself on an especially vicious two-stroke – either bogged down and stuttering or tipped into the magic zone above 5,000rpm where it’s a complete firecracker.

This is where the chassis wakes up, and the A110 is suddenly bubbly, vivid and transparent. The steering is alive, and even though there’s so little weight pushing down on the front wheels, it’s not too distracted by surface and camber. Now the discomfort and challenge are forgotten, it becomes controllable and accurate, flowing over crests, treading lightly and evenly, carrying good speed everywhere.

But the rest of the time it’s hard work. Hard, uncomfortable work. Lotus Elans of this period are wonderful cars, lithe and fluid, light in your hands and fabulously rewarding. This is compromised. A racer that never quite got civilised. Exactly the car Rédélé intended.