There’s a sense of anti-establishment to the Alpine A110 Legende GT, says Ethan Jupp. A brutal honesty, a mischievousness, a sense that it’s an affront to the corporate prerogative. That’s certainly how it feels amid a sea of Porsches in the Country Club car park.
There’s no straight down-the-line reason for the Alpine to be here, yet it is, and you should be all the happier for it. As horsepower, torque, footprints, tyre sections, kerb weights and spring rates of cars of its ilk balloon beyond the comprehension of the likes of Murray, Chapman and co, the Alpine stays true to what makes a car great to drive. That’s probably why the former bought one as his daily hack.
Yet for reasons I can’t fathom, four years on from its launch, the order books haven’t exactly filled themselves. Not, it says, until recently, when the marque was catapulted to stardom with its name plastered on the haunches of the Formula 1 car formerly badged as a Renault – “Auto Trader searches have spiked every race weekend.”
Still, to better keep the A110 a curiosity to buyers without irritating the suits, Alpine has steadily brought to market a succession of new versions and specs, with the latest being this limited-run Legende GT. It might just be the one you’ve been waiting for.
Why? Because it marries the breathe-with-you chassis of the ‘standard’ car with the more luxurious interior appointment of the Legende and the peppier engine of the A110S in just 300 examples.
Up to this point, it’s been the cabin that’s let the Alpine A110 down. Take the token-feeling infotainment system sat amid a backdrop of scratchy plastics and some recognisable Renault switchgear – humbling, to say the least.
Viewed the other way, however, the specialness of the Alpine is in what’s been sacrificed and what the money has been spent on. Everything has been critiqued for its gram-value — we’re lucky there’s infotainment at all — and everything that needs to be bespoke or of higher quality, for the driver’s sake, is.
The digital instrument cluster, with differing displays for ‘Normal’, ‘Sport’ and ‘Race’ modes, is crisp and well thought out. The wheel feels nice and the seats have always been incredible — lightweight, figure-hugging, yet still comfortable, with a more exotic stitch pattern for the Legende GT. It sounds odd to say, but the featherweight feel of the doors is eye-opening to the goals of the A110.
This limited-run car gets some carbon trim, backlit door sills and, of course, the plaque telling you which of the 300 Alpine A110 Legende GTs you received — 020 in the case of this one. That alone could be worth it for the golf club Top Trumps. The only control surface disappointment are the paddles, which are metallic-ish and not as big as I’d like. A replacement set from Life110 would sort that out.
Fire up the A110 Legende GT, and the turbocharged 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine burbles into life with more personality than anything with that capacity should. Press ‘D’, engage ‘Sport’ on the steering wheel, and away you roll. Instantly, the lightness is evident. There’s no feeling that a power steering pump or motor is heaving it when manoeuvring at low speeds.
Out on the road, there’s an almost extra-dimensional feel to it as it glides over the kinds of lumps, bumps, furrows and ruts that’d be compressing your spine in a modern BMW M model or even a Porsche. Free of the extra 200-400kg that some rivals are carrying, it’s also free of the heavy engineering required to manage that weight, and that’s evident everywhere. Whether you’re dispatching a mountain road or pootling around town, this car’s sinewy athleticism is a tonic.
Speaking of around town, the A110 Legende GT is a head-turner in the best way, especially in the silky new Mercury Silver paint. Compact, shrink-wrapped and tastefully retro-modern, you just see it in the eyes of passers-by — “I don’t know what that is, but I like it”. None of the sneers of resentment and judgement you’d get with an M badge or Porsche crest here…
It sounds silly, but it’s almost as if it has that finger-tippy x-factor that you miss from the old Mini you first started driving in, that you’re so nostalgic for in a world of 1,600kg 400hp hot hatches and radar-guided 1,900kg 600hp super saloons.
It’s quite unlike anything else on sale today, splitting the glue-smelling spine-smashing Lotus Elise and the doesn’t-want-to-admit-how-lardy-it’s-got Porsche Cayman right down the middle.
If you’re an honest-to-goodness driving enthusiast, the A110 is something to be experienced and that experience is only enhanced in Legende GT spec.
- Driven: Alpine A110 Legende GT - 27 October 2021