Alpine confirmed for Australia

It's official: A new generation of Renault-powered Alpine sports cars will come Down Under in 2016.

CEO and advocate for the resurrected French sports car brand, Bernard Ollivier, confirmed the timetable and the fact that all Alpine models will be built in right-hand drive at this week’s Paris motor show.

Drawing reference from the 2012 Alpine A110-50 , the passionate and vocal brand boss explained the first new Alpine would be a “Berlinette for the 21st Century”.

“It will be a modern sports car, with the technology of today, with the materials of today — and for modern customers.

“And of course the car will go to Australia… It will be a right-hand drive car… We will prepare a car for Australia,” Ollivier stated.

Exterior and interior design have been frozen for the car, which Ollivier categorised as sitting between Porsche’s “quite premium” Cayman and the raw performance of “very frugal, very simple” Alfa Romeo 4C.

He was pointed that the car would be lightweight but would not have the “low perceived quality’ of the Alfa.

“Alpine will be premium with a French touch. It will be agile and [suitable] for daily use.

“The car is very beautiful. It will have the DNA of Alpine and the road handling but it will be a modern car,” Ollivier told motoring.com.au.

The new Alpine is expected to feature a mid-engine and rear-drive. Ollivier confirmed the new Alpine would feature a RenaultSport-tuned four-cylinder power plant and dual-clutch gearbox, which when combined with the carbon-fibre chassis car’s light weight would have enough performance to make the Alpine “a rocket”.

“With Alpine you have an extractive pleasure in small curves [tight roads], not the highway,” Ollivier enthused.

Production levels will average around 3000 units per year, but Ollivier says the Alpine operation will be able to build up to 5000 cars per annum. That will initially comprise one model, but hints the Ollivier, if the first Alpine is a success more Alpines are possible.

“We can’t think that a brand has only one model but there is not future for this brand if our first car is bad...We have only one objective today — the success of the first car."

What Ollivier won’t countenance is a dilution of the brand.

“It [the brand] will be an Alpine, it will not be a Renault Alpine… It’s yellow [Renault’s corporate colour], but it must be blue — only [Alpine] blue.

By way of a pointed example, going forward there’ll be no 'Clio by Alpine'.

“No. Impossible. Clio by Alpine is Golf by Porsche. Renault in the past has made this mixed but now the importance of the brand in marketing [is paramount],” Ollivier told motoring.com.au.