Renault left the United States in 1987 with its tail between its legs and a reputation built on forgettable economy cars like the Alliance and the Medallion. For most Americans, that chapter closed and nobody particularly mourned it. But here comes Alpine, Renault’s sporty offspring, tiptoeing back across the Atlantic with fresh ambitions, a brand new electric sports car, and enough Formula 1 swagger to make the whole thing sound almost plausible.
The plan has been in motion for a few years now. Former Renault CEO Luca de Meo floated the idea of an Alpine return to U.S. shores back around 2023, targeting 2027 or 2028 as a realistic window. De Meo has since moved on to run Kering, the luxury fashion empire behind Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, which is either a massive upgrade or a lateral move depending on how much you enjoy arguing about handbags versus horsepower. Either way, the product strategy he set in motion has survived his departure, and Alpine now has the hardware to actually make this happen.
The centerpiece of this American comeback story is a brand new version of the Alpine A110, one of the most genuinely delightful sports cars built in the modern era. There is just one detail that will split opinions faster than a political debate at Thanksgiving: the new one is fully electric. Breathe. We will get into why that might not be the disaster it sounds like.
What Killed the Last A110’s American Dream
The original modern A110, which launched in 2017, never made it to the States, and the reason is almost poetic in its bureaucratic absurdity. U.S. crash regulations surrounding unbelted occupants were the culprit. Alpine’s former chief vehicle engineer David Twohig confirmed the company seriously explored a U.S. launch, even eyeing Infiniti’s dealer network as a distribution solution. Engineers had a fix in mind, but implementing it would have added weight and complexity to a car whose entire identity revolves around being featherweight and pure. So America stayed deprived, and enthusiasts were left staring longingly at European road test videos.
Production of the current A110 wraps up this summer anyway, largely because its aging electrical architecture, borrowed from a Renault Clio platform dating back to 2012, cannot support the modern driver assistance systems now mandatory in Europe, including automatic emergency braking. It is a genuinely sad farewell to one of the great driver’s cars of its generation. Gordon Murray, the legend behind the McLaren F1 and GMA T.50, drives one as his daily car. That is the only endorsement you will ever need.
The New A110: Lighter Dreams, Electric Reality
The replacement A110 rides on an all-new platform Alpine calls the Alpine Performance Platform, or APP, because the French love a good acronym. It is an aluminum-intensive structure, similar in construction philosophy to the outgoing car, but instead of a turbocharged four-cylinder sitting behind the seats, there are two electric motors mounted at the rear axle driving the rear wheels.
Alpine has not yet published power figures, but the current base car makes 248 horsepower, so expect the new one to clear that comfortably. The battery packs are positioned ahead of and behind the passenger compartment rather than under the floor, which preserves a low seating position and targets a 40/60 front-to-rear weight distribution. The system runs on an 800-volt architecture for fast charging, and Alpine’s in-house torque vectoring system can shuffle power between the rear wheels every 10 milliseconds, which is faster than any human can process what is happening, let alone react to it.
The weight target is approximately 3,100 pounds. That is genuinely ambitious for an EV sports car. For comparison, Porsche is reportedly in a cold sweat trying to keep the upcoming electric 718 Cayman under 4,000 pounds, and Stuttgart engineers are not known for giving up easily.
F1 Fans, AutoNation, and Why This Might Actually Work
Here is where Alpine’s U.S. strategy gets genuinely clever. The brand has a Formula 1 team, and thanks to the cultural phenomenon that is Drive to Survive, F1 is now mainstream American entertainment. Alpine may be unknown in American driveways, but it is not unknown to the demographic that matters most: younger fans, with nearly half of F1’s U.S. audience reportedly under 35, and the fastest-growing segment being women aged 16 to 24. That is a marketing foundation most new brands would pay billions to manufacture from scratch.
On the retail side, Renault has reportedly been in discussions with AutoNation, the dealership giant operating more than 250 locations across 15 states representing 35 brands. AutoNation and the Alpine F1 team already crossed paths at the 2023 Miami Grand Prix, so there is an existing relationship to build on.
The electric powertrain also quietly solves the homologation headache that sank the original A110’s U.S. ambitions. A modern electrical architecture means the car can support all the required driver assistance systems without a painful engineering retrofit. Getting it federalized suddenly looks far more straightforward than it ever did before.
Whether Americans will actually line up to buy an electric sports car is a separate and genuinely fair question. Porsche itself is hedging its bets by quietly engineering a combustion option back into the 718 platform after buyer enthusiasm for the EV version proved lukewarm. Alpine CEO Philippe Krief says the APP platform can accommodate a combustion engine with minimal difficulty, which is either reassuring contingency planning or a very polite acknowledgment that the market might not be ready to go fully electric in the sports car segment just yet.
Either way, Alpine is coming. And honestly, after years of forbidden fruit, America could use a lightweight sports car with a great backstory and a Formula 1 team behind it, even if it runs on electrons instead of gasoline.