The Alpine A110 occupies a special place in the hearts of many petrolheads, with its focused, lightweight, sporty, and smile-inducing personality. It’s hardly the speediest sports car money can buy, but for all the fun that you could have, the A110 is exceptional bang-for-buck! Yet, it may be hard, even for diehard Alpine fans, to swallow the price tag of this latest ultra-special variant of France’s best ‘attainable’ sports car; the new A110 R Ultime. With an eye-watering starting price of €265,000 and with there being only 110 unique examples to be built, this will not only become Alpine’s most exclusive model to date, but it’s certainly a collector’s piece.
It’s perhaps not a surprise then that you could spec your dream A110 R Ultime with a properly huge array of bespoke options. With Alpine’s ‘Atelier Sur‑Mesure’ personalisation programme, you can choose between up to 28 paint finishes, 14 unique shades of Alcantara, and 10 special shades of leather. Regardless of all those fancy bits, what really interests me about the new Alpine A110 R Ultime most is the abundance of clever engineering and upgrades done to not only remove weight over the previous A110 editions but also allow you to enjoy a way greater level of performance, starting with that GT4-derived 1.8-litre inline-4 turbo engine.
More Money = Even More Performance & Even Less Weight
Despite being based on the same engine that you’ll find in the regular A110 variants, this new A110 R Ultime has been tuned to produce a mightily impressive 345 bhp (or 325 bhp on lower octane fuel), allowing you to sprint from 0 to 100km/h in just 3.8 seconds. More impressively, on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the A110 R Ultime is a whopping 20 seconds faster than the ‘standard’ A110 R, thanks in part to that revised powertrain. Among the many changes made to that engine that you’ll notice are the new forged pistons and connecting rods that Alpine learned from their GT4 programme, engineered to reduce weight and improve durability.
Meanwhile, there’s the turbocharger, which was re-designed to match a rebored casting, and the new compressor wheel, as well as its updated engine mapping, which is optimised for 102 octane fuel. Additionally, you’ll find that you could achieve peak power at 6,000 RPM, with its 420Nm peak torque output available from 3,200 RPM. And best of all, to guarantee a focused, sharp, and lithe driving experience, you are cocooned inside one of the world’s lightest sports cars today. The Alpine A110 R Ultime is built entirely from aluminium, and its extensive use of carbon components makes it even lighter still compared to the A110 R and the other models.
A Refreshingly Focused, Lithe, And Enjoyable Driving Experience
Furthermore, the suspension set-up on the A110 R Ultime saw a huge sea of change, where it has since been completely redesigned, and it also comes with Ohlins TTX dampers. This latter configuration affords height adjustment and two-way hydraulic adjustment for compression and rebound. Visually and functionally, I’m also in love with these new forged wheels that you get in the A110 R Ultime, measuring 18 inches at the front (which are now 10mm wider than the tyres that you get in the A110 R) and 19 inches at the rear. Between them, there’s a new and upgraded braking system, which includes larger discs and racing-grade brake pads.
For maximum track performance, Alpine offers you the A110 R Ultime with Michelin PS CUP 2 tyres, made bespoke just for it. Moreover, we’ve yet to touch on all the aero improvements, as the A110 R Ultime increases downforce by an awe-inspiring 160kg compared to the A110 R. It includes a flexible-lip front splitter, fins on the front bumper, rear bumper endplates, a spoiler, an adjustable rear wing, and a ducktail on the beltline. While most of us can’t afford one, it is neat to know that some of these upgrades on the new A110 R Ultime might trickle down and be homologated on future Alpine models, so perhaps there’s hope for the rest of us, after all.
