The Alpine A110: Rally Racing’s Acclaimed “Flatfish”
Originally published on October 7, 2024. Written by Andy Wasif.
Since 1894 and Le Concours des Voitures sans Chevaux (or Paris-Rouen Horseless Carriage Competition), motorized vehicles have competed in a variety of popular racing series across the decades including Formula 1, the long-defunct Canadian-American Challenge Cup, drag racing, NASCAR, and rallying. Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport that falls under two categories–road rallies, whether held on private roads or public, and cross-country, which are off-road. The very word “rally” comes from the French word rallier which means “to reunite or regroup urgently during battle.” So it should be no surprise that a French car is so deeply entrenched in the lore of rallying after dominating its competition so thoroughly from 1968 to 1973. That car is the Alpine A110 and is a highlight of the Petersen’s new Driven to Win exhibit which features cars from all walks of motorsport life.
The car sprang from an idea from a Renault car dealer located along the Channel coast in Dieppe, France. That dealer, Jean Rèdèlè, longed for cars that emphasized sportiness and realized you could achieve such a criterion by tuning a 4CV engine and employing fiberglass bodywork. Rèdèlè raced his new creation to class wins at the Mille Miglia and won the famed Coupe des Alpes (also known as the Alpine Rally) and thus a new model was born: the Alpine A106 in 1955.
With engine advancements and improvements, the model went from the A106 to A108 before hitting its stride with the A110 in 1962. Unveiled that year at the Paris Motor Show, the A110 Berlinette Tour de France featured fiberglass construction for its bodywork, a central tube frame chassis, and a Renault 8 rear engine that was initially 956 cc and reached a top speed of 105 mph with 52 hp. The philosophy of the Alpine being that cars that weren’t necessarily the most powerful may still punch above their weight because they were so light and agile. In fact, the first Alpine weighed only 565 kg (1144 pounds). Consider it a mid-engine sports car dressed as a Mini. The vehicle was so small and flat that it was given the nickname le Turbot, a type of flatfish.
The radiator of the A110 sat behind the engine rather than in front. Therefore it no longer needed side cooling intakes, instead using smaller inlets to the left and right of the bonnet. In 1965 for the 1300 model, the radiator was moved from the rear to the front for better cooling. Over time, the car continued its evolution, going from the 1.1-L Renault 8 Major engine to the Renault 8 Gordini which featured 92.6 hp by increasing displacement to 1.3-L, allowing it to hit top speeds of 141 mph. This 1400 model went on to win the Coupe des Alpes in 1968 with Jean Vinatier at the wheel, beating more established brands like Alfa Romeo and Lancia.
Then a 1.5-L aluminum engine was used as the new A110 base engine before adopting the Renault 16 TS engine, a 1.6-L 4-cylinder rocket. As displacement continued to increase from 1.8 to 1.86, this A110 1600S reached 180 hp in 1969 as a compact two-door fiberglass car with a rear-engine layout, rounded edges, a lack of intakes, underbody ducting in order to channel air into the engine, and a steel backbone chassis for help with agility and handling.
Alpine’s A110 1600S model won the Coupe des Alpes two more times consecutively, again with Vinatier and then with Bernard Darniche driving in the final running of this race in 1971. (The race was canceled in 1970 due to a lack of sponsorship.) Alpine also went on a four-year championship run at the Lyon-Charbonnières Rally through 1972.
1971 was a particularly good year for the Alpine A110 as it also won the Monte Carlo Rally and the Makes Championship, though it performed even better at Monte Carlo in 1973 where it placed 1-2-3 on the leaderboard. Other wins during the time period included the Corsica Rally, San Remo Rally, and Acropolis Rally.
In 1973, Renault officially bought Alpine which made sense given the fact that most of the Alpine was made up of Renault parts. Overall, the A110 Berlinette sold 7,176 cars between 1962 and 1977 making it Alpine’s most widely-produced model. In 1971 alone, 1,029 of the A110 were sold. As the famous phrase goes: “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” The road version of the Alpine A110 was ultimately replaced by the A310, the Renault Alpine GTA, and the A610.
The Alpine A110 at the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally || Credit: Petersen Automotive Museum Archive
The one on display here in the Nearburg Gallery is an 1800 model from 1972 that is one of only thirteen produced. It competed in the Monumental 1973 Championship Season and was driven by Bernard Darniche and Jean-Pierre Nicolas who loved driving the car so much he is quoted as saying, "It was delightful. It was like a toy the way the car would slide."
In 2012, Renault celebrated 50 years of the powerhouse rally car by unveiling the Renault Alpine A110 50 concept, but we celebrate it every day here at the Petersen.
