Alpine A390 GT - long-term review

Alpine’s on the up. In 2024, some 4,500 cars found homes across the globe, which shot up to 11k in 2025, and already it was on 14k at the end of September 2026.

Now. Most of those numbers comprise the punchy little A290 hot hatch. And the A110, which is now dead. So while the A390’s only been on sale for what feels like five minutes, it’s reportedly picking up a little more slowly.

We asked Alpine UK boss Nicola Burnside about it.

“It’s not for everybody,” she admitted. “I think it’s about finding those right people who appreciate it and want it.”

That philosophy – ‘not for everybody’ – alludes to Alpine being an ‘if you know you know’ kind of brand, a bit like Alpina is (or was) to BMW. Burnside smiles at this comparison. “We’ve always been going against the established market. Porsche for example is an amazing brand, makes amazing product, has a long history, is absolutely iconic.

“We’re happy being that little alternative.”

She said the idea is once you’re behind the wheel of an A290 or something like TG’s long-term A390, you’ll ‘get’ what they’re about. “Both of those cars are very Alpine,” she said, “you have to drive them and feel them to understand them.”

We must admit we really struggled to understand exactly what the A390 GT really stood for. Alpine’s pitch is a ‘racing car in a suit’, which… just no. It’s neither an SUV nor a coupe, despite being also billed as such, which also… no. Pick one, stick to it.

It’s also nothing like what you’d traditionally call an ‘Alpine’, because it’s not a punchy lightweight sportscar. It weighs 2.1 tonnes! It looks like a bloated hatchback! It’s not really a properly practical family car either because leg room in the back is compromised and there’s no front storage.

Nor does it come with adaptive damping – on any of its three available versions – which means you can’t ever soften up the ride. So over long distances it remains what you’d call ‘busy’. Always feels like the A390 wants a bigger job like ‘drive me on the door handles on a smooth road immediately!’. It’s constantly hunting on a poorly tarmacked road, which in the UK, comprises most of the network.

It’s also not enormously efficient, either. We’re averaging around 2.7mpkWh, which means a range of around 250 in the so-called real world without paying attention to driving economically.

There are other smaller niggles too. The USB-C connections are tricky to reach. The ‘Alpine’ logo on the passenger-side dash appears in the left-hand mirror at night because it’s illuminated and is therefore a bit distracting. The small rear window feels like you’re looking through a postbox. The beeps and bongs feel a bit too ‘Renault Group’ and not as premium as the car’s price and positioning suggests.

Speaking of, while there are a load of physical buttons operating the climate, heated seats, hazards, locks and so on, and steering column-mounted switchgear that does the audio, it’s the exact same stuff you’ll find in something like a Renault 4. Nothing unique to the Alpine.

Ditto the steering wheel buttons themselves. And the less said about an ‘OV’ overtake button the better. Why not just use your right foot instead?

But then you do use your right foot. And use that Renault Group steering to thread the big lug through a series of corners. And suddenly it really does – and this is no marketing spiel – ‘feel’ like an Alpine. The steering’s accurate, sharp, and the thing just finds grip and sticks to it.

Give it some proper work to do and it comes alive. It’s a tri-motor setup with torque vectoring, and you can literally feel where the 400 horses are being sent corner by corner. It’s lively on a circuit for sure, and really quick – especially when not on a circuit and just accelerating onto a slip road/joining a motorway/overtaking that 52mph middle-lane hogger. Plus, it does genuinely feel light on its feet.

There’s a bit of body roll but just enough to let you know physics are occurring. And while it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be – hatchback? SUV? Coupe? – it does look really cool, different, and interesting. The shape grows on you, stands out in a car park, attracts lots of admiring looks and in electric blue, really pops.

So to answer the question we posed at the very beginning, has Alpine transferred enough of the A110’s magic into it? Yep.