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COVER Alpine A110 revealed

Renault sub-brand reveals A110 ahead of launch later this year

- Lawrence Allan Lawrence_allan@dennis.co.uk @Loballan

Wraps off striking new £50k sports car to rival Cayman

AFTER a lengthy teaser campaign and a ‘Save the Date’ invitation for its Geneva Motor Show unveil, the first images of the new Alpine A110 sports car in production form have landed.

The Porsche 718 Cayman rival is expected to arrive towards the end of 2017. UK sales will start early next year, with a price tag of around £50,000.

The new images show the finished front and side profile of the car – from Renault’s sporty new sub-brand – for the first time. As expected, it looks virtually identical to the Alpine Vision Concept that made its debut in 2016, with exactly the same lightweigh­t aluminium bodywork and the distinctiv­e dual front LED lights.

Only small details such as the mirrors are more convention­al than the concept’s, and while we’ve yet to see the changes made to the rear end, bosses have previously assured us that it won’t change much. The wheels, covering the distinctiv­e Alpine-badged blue brake calipers, are different in their design, too.

We’ve yet to see the interior, however. Alpine has previously released images showing the production car’s racy Recaro seats, but the final dash design is still under wraps. While the concept featured a futuristic and racy look with a TFT dial display, a raised central infotainme­nt screen and a swooping centre console, we’ll have to wait until next week to see if any of those elements will be toned down.

It’s highly likely that the Alpine A110 will be powered by a mid-mounted 1.8litre four cylinder turbo petrol engine, just like the concept. We expect the sports car to produce around 250bhp, delivered to the rear wheels through a dual-clutch automatic gearbox. It will be extremely light, too, with engineers confirming a 0-62mph sprint time of 4.5 seconds. It’s rumoured that a hot Renaultspo­rt version with even more power is on the cards as well.

Visit autoexpres­s.co.uk for full details when the car is revealed on Tuesday.

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