This is an Alpine A110 1600S, often referred to as the “Renault Alpine,” though Renault did not actually own Alpine until 1978. The Alpine A110 was produced from 1961 to 1977, and saw major rally success in the early 1970s. In fact, the Alpine A110 holds the honor as the first World Rally Champion, winning the inaugural WRC season in 1973.
The “Renault Alpine” designation comes from the fact that Alpine used Renault engines in the A110. The top-spec 1600S model you see here had a 1.6L inline-four producing 138hp. That may not sound like a lot, but at just around 1,600lbs the A110 1600S was capable of doing 130mph. Keep in mind, this is a rally car, not a supercar, and 130mph is a lot of speed on a winding rally stage.
We caught this classic french rally car at the cars and coffee event held during the Amelia Island car weekend. This car actually flew past us the night before, but all we could see then was its yellow headlights and enjoy the sound its lovely engine echoing off the trees as it disappeared into the dark abyss. I was thrilled to see the Alpine in daylight the next day, and it was great to get some shots of it. Enjoy!
-Photos by Nick Walker
Mind Over Motor 
Reblogged this on Rvinyl Performance and commented:
Thanks again Nick! You guys do great work!
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The designation Renault Alpine as the marque identity is completely incorrect. Société des Automobiles Alpine was founded by Jean Rédélé in the early 1950s and a Certificat de Dépôt d’Acte that recognises the foundation of Société des Automobiles Alpine on 22 June 1955 was issued by the Tribunal de Commerce de la Seine.
It was during 1967, when Jean Rédélé was in the throes of negotiating with Renault to sell and support Alpines by the Renault dealer network, that the Renault diamond first appeared on the nose of the A110 and Alpine Renault badging appeared on the engine cover – as on the car in your pictures. However the formal marque identity, as shown on the chassis plaques, remained Alpine.
Gradually Renault increased their financial support to Alpine’s competition activities as the company sought to derive publicity benefit from Alpine’s competition successes and the Régie eventually took a majority holding in Alpine in September 1973, the year that Alpine-Renault won the inaugural World Rally Championship with the A110 and 11 years after the introduction of that model. A consequence of this was that the formal marque name was changed and the chassis plaques showed Alpine Renault as the manufacturer and this carried through for all models until the end of A610 production in 1995.
So the correct marque designation for the cars is either Alpine or Alpine-Renault.
Renault Alpine was the name taken by the Renault competition department when management control was passed to Alpine and that is why it appeared on certain competition cars as at the 1978 Le Mans race where the Renault competition department entered cars carried Renault Alpine logos on the bodywork but the cars’ chassis plates show the manufacturer as Alpine.
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Superbe voiture, on en voit beaucoup en France, on oublierait presque la chance que l’on a.
Nice car, we see a lot of those cars in France, we forgot the chance we have.
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