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cazalea
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Alpine — a mini-Ferrari?

(From Automotive News)

Renault's Italian-born CEO Luca de Meo has a brave ambition: to build a sports-car brand, barely brought back to life, into a Ferrari fighter.

Alpine, the French marque that Renault revived recently after 20 years of dormancy, is a long way from striking fear into the competition. Renault has sold barely 1000 of its A110 sports cars this year.

The veteran auto executive has said he sees Alpine as ripe for expansion. One of the first big moves made since he took over as CEO was to rename Renault's Formula One team as Alpine starting with the 2021 season. He says if Renault combines the cutting-edge engineering work of its motor-racing program with the "quasi-artisanal" work conducted at the Alpine factory in northern France, "you could get a mini Ferrari."

To get others talking about Alpine in the same breath as the Italian supercar maker, de Meo has lots of work to do building up the brand's scale and status. The Dieppe plant that produces Alpines is typical of the automaker's production woes in Europe — building 7 cars a day at a site capable of 32 is not sustainable.

Alpines are not cheap, with the higher-performance A110S starting at 67,900 euros ($79,500) but in France Ferrari's least-expensive models are more than $200,000.

Renault needs a spark like Alpine. The company lost a record 7.3 billion euros in the first half of 2020 and has looked on the verge of breaking up with Renault, its longtime alliance partner. Renault mainly competes in Europe's mass market, which has been plagued by brands fighting for low-margin business.

Worldwide sales of the A110 began in late 2017, and peaked at 4,835 last year.

De Meo has dropped a few hints about where the brand will go next, saying last week it will "add emotion" to Renault's electric lineup. In a memo to staff last month, he called for Alpine to embark on a "Porsche 911 program" and spawn a small series of viable EVs.


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I think Alpine is much more in the realm of Lotus — as it is building small, light, exciting cars rather than large, heavy super cars.

But saying “we’re a better Lotus” won’t excite the stock market investors. 😕

Cazalea

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