The Alpine A110: A Car that Defies Convention

When it comes to sports cars, many manufacturers focus on creating bloated, heavy machines that prioritize power over handling and agility. However, not all sports cars are created equal. The Alpine A110, a lightweight roadster designed for track enthusiasts, takes a different approach. With its emphasis on predictability, control, and fun, the A110 is a car that rewards driver input and encourages mistakes that can be easily recovered from.

One of the key factors in the A110's design is its stiff suspension, which helps to compensate for its relatively low ride height. The A110's springs are stiffer than those found on the standard Alpine A110, allowing it to maintain control at high speeds. This stiffness also helps to reduce body roll and improve stability, making the car more predictable and easier to handle.

The A110's dampers are also adjustable, with 20 clicks of adjustment available to provide a range of compression and rebound settings. This allows drivers to fine-tune the car's suspension to suit their driving style and preferences. Additionally, the A110's shock bodies are threaded, allowing for an extra 10 millimeters of lowering, making it ideal for track use.

In terms of aerodynamics, the A110 has been designed with downforce in mind. The carbon fiber lip on the front hood is carried over from the standard A110, but its design is optimized to reduce drag while also directing air over the front windscreen at high speeds. This helps to improve the car's overall efficiency and stability. The A110's integral flat floor and carbon fiber side skirts are designed to widen the flat bottom of the car, improving downforce and reducing undercarriage turbulence.

The rear wheel design is more open than the front, with the front axle handling most of the braking duties. This allows for better brake cooling and improved efficiency. The A110's rear brakes feature Brembo's all-aluminum ECS calipers, which have a built-in electronic parking brake that also serves as a fail-safe in case the hydraulic system fails. This reduces unsprung weight and improves overall performance.

One of the standout features of the A110 is its rear wing, which has been redesigned to improve downforce without increasing drag. The blade has been moved back 18 millimeters, raised by 46 millimeters, and adjusted to use swan neck mounts that reduce disturbance on the underside of the wing. This results in over 300 pounds of downforce over the standard A110, with essentially no drag penalty.

Driving the Alpine A110

I had the opportunity to drive both the A110 GT and the track-focused A110 R, and I was impressed by their handling characteristics. The GT's softer suspension and longer travel made it feel very lively and fun, with plenty of movement but never a sense of lacking control. In contrast, the A110 R's stiffer suspension and stickier tires provided a more aggressive and predictable driving experience.

One of the standout features of both cars is their predictability at high speeds. With the right settings and driving style, both cars can deliver incredible handling and stability. However, there's also a sense of playfulness to them, a joy that comes from being able to push the car hard without fear of losing control.

In contrast to heavier sports cars, which often prioritize speed over handling, the Alpine A110 is a car that rewards driver input and encourages mistakes that can be easily recovered from. This makes it an ideal choice for track enthusiasts who want to focus on driving technique rather than pure acceleration. With its emphasis on predictability, control, and fun, the A110 is a car that will put a smile on your face, even when pushing it hard.

A Special Thank You

I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Alpine for allowing me to drive the Alpine A110 in America and for sponsoring this video. This was an incredible experience, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome this video is sponsored by Alpine who kindly invited me to come check out the Alpine a110r in Miami and also attend the Formula One race as you can imagine I had to think long and hard about whether to say yes especially because the A110 is a car that checks nearly all the boxes of what I consider to be the perfect formula small and compact genuinely lightweight a relatively soft and relatively long travel suspension and a further separate itself from those already in this very exclusive territory a mid-mounted engine with real torque sending power to the rear wheels now unfortunately my ideal formula isn't all that popular in the country I live in and alas we don't get the A110 here in the states something I've wanted to happen for many years but you can imagine the joy I felt knowing I'd get to try out the most extreme variant here on American Shores ahead of the Miami GP and in the company of some pretty talented drivers so let's dive into the engineering of the A1 10r starting with weight as it's fundamentally the most critical aspect of this car's design the standard A110 tips the scales at 2429 pounds admittedly that's when optioned as low as possible as it goes as high as 2513 pounds fully equipped the a110r drops that under 2400 pounds and lightweight packages are always welcome in my opinion but they're often a little insulting as manufacturers talk about how important it is to remove Weight only for you to find out that the car's curb weight is four thousand pounds like cool I guess but in this case we're taking an already very light car and pulling real weight out of it compared to the a110s the r removes about 75 pounds of weight carbon fiber Wheels help remove nearly 28 pounds of unsprung rotational Mass carbon fiber seats pull out 11 pounds paired with a 6 point harness that takes out another three pounds the carbon fiber hood takes out nearly six pounds for versus the aluminum Hood it replaces and at the back of the car you'll notice there's no rear window this entirely carbon fiber rear window meaning yes it's opaque saves nearly nine pounds with a cascading effect as you can now remove the rear view mirror the engine bay partition glass behind the driver as well as the engine cover now while a car being lightweight is rare these days without context having low mass alone isn't all that impressive and in America unfortunately this benefit is often left overlooked presumably by those who haven't yet discovered the joy of cornering because let's face it by modern standards lightweight cars are often a bit gutless fundamentally pulling power out of a car is necessary in order to make it lighter more power requires a bigger engine it requires a beefier transmission to handle the torque with larger differentials and driveshafts more power means you need more cooling so you get a larger radiator bigger fans and more coolant more power means you need more stopping power increasing the size eyes and weight of the braking components all of this is to say when a manufacturer sets out to design a lightweight car High horsepower is fundamentally at odds with the overall goal so the cars in the lightweight category in my opinion anything coming in under about 3 000 pounds these cars get dismissed so frequently because they don't have the power to compete in terms of acceleration with similarly priced competitors that's one of the things that's so cool about this Alpine it doesn't fit that narrative with about 300 horsepower and weighing under 2 400 pounds the power to weight ratio dips into a territory that lets it compete not only around corners but in a straight line as well Alpine claims a zero to 100 kilometer per hour or 62 mile per hour in just 3.9 seconds it's genuinely quick in part thanks to a small 1.8 liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder power is up from the standard A110 thanks to an additional 0.4 bar or about 6 PSI of Turbo boost though it's still quicker than the a110s even with equal power again this goes back to the weight reduction and importantly the carbon fiber Wheels since rotational weight has a large impact on acceleration so again 0 to 60 in the threes but with a 1.8 liter and it is worth mentioning from the very beginning the car was designed to be limited to a 1.8 liter engine any design is about choosing where you want to compromise and for what reasons in the case of the A110 sacrifices were made to enable the overall goal to succeed create a lightweight Nimble chassis paired with a predictable and well handling suspension that means a double Wishbone suspension in both the front and the back as double Wishbone suspensions minimize your camber changes throughout the length of wheel travel optimizing grip and providing predictable handling the challenge is that double Wishbone suspensions are wide and encroach in towards the center of the car even more so when like Alpine you want a relatively long travel suspension which now means even longer control arms it's a packaging compromise in the name of good handling your front trunk is smaller to allow room for the a arms and again your engine size is limited there's only so much space you have to fit a laterally mounted inline four-cylinder this is part of why there's no manual transmission offered a dual clutch transmission provided better packaging in the space requirements allowing for the widest suspension control arms as possible and though I'd love to see a manual transmission offered it's a beautiful thing to see this suspension methodology implemented double Wishbone suspensions are increasingly rare and seemingly even more rare are sports car suspensions with significant travel and a relatively soft ride there's a mentality that's stiffer means better that it means more grip but in real-world road conditions this is often untrue regardless many marketing teams have leaned into this promoting the stiffness and flat ride of the road cars but comfort and grip don't have to be at odds with each other with a properly designed suspension since the a110r is a road legal car but designed to be used at the racetrack of course the suspension is firmed up in anticipation of smoother Road surfaces the a110s is significantly stiffer than the base A110 so there's not a huge jump in stiffness going from s to R the front and rear suspensions both get 10 stiffer Springs with the front rear sway bars 10 and 25 stiffer respectively this makes a very meaningful impact in how much role the body of the car has while cornering it's about 30 percent less roll than the A110 and 15 percent less roll than the a110s with a roll rate of just 2.3 degrees per G of lateral acceleration down from 3.3 and 2.7 degrees per G another reason for the stiffer Springs here is to allow for a lower ride height it's 10 millimeters lower than the a110s and at the track you can lower it another 10 millimeters thanks to the threaded shock bodies the dampers are also adjustable with 20 clicks of adjustment to provide a range of compression and rebound finally the stiffer Springs help compensate for this model's additional downforce so the standard A110 starts out with a 4456 front rear weight distribution the a110s with the Aero package adds about 300 pounds of downforce on top of this with the downforce nearly matching the weight distribution profile the a110r takes a different strategy there's similar down Force but its shifted rearward with a balanced Alpine says favors greater stability and turns and at high speeds and while it achieves similar downforce to the A110 s pack Aero in its lowered track position it does so with five percent less drag and more impressively equal drag to the standard A110 this means better efficiency better acceleration and helps it achieve a higher top speed of 177 miles per hour the fastest of the A110 variants starting at the front The downforce Story begins with the carbon fiber lip carried over from the a110s moving up the front hood is designed partially to reduce drag but also to redirect air over the front windscreen at high speeds reducing the pressure on the glass underneath you have the a110's standard integral flat floor with carbon fiber side skirts now added to widen the flat bottom of the car improving down force and reducing undercarriage turbulence looking at the side of the car you'll also notice the front wheel is more open than the rear the fronts are optimized for better brake cooling leaving a more open design since the front axle handles most of the braking versus the rear wheels which are more enclosed optimized to reduce drag and a quick comment on the rear brakes the Alpine A110 was actually the first car to use brembo's all-aluminum ECS caliper these calipers have a built-in electronic parking brake which also serves as a Fail-Safe fully able to stop the car in case the hydraulic system fails and importantly in the context of the A110 being aluminum instead of cast iron they remove 5.5 pounds of unsprung weight from the rear axle so at the back you'll notice the rear diffuser sweeping up helping to accelerate the airflow underneath the car and thus improved downforce while also reducing drag working hand in hand with the rear wing above interestingly the blade of the rear wing is the same as the a110s but with some seemingly simple changes to have dramatically improved its Effectiveness it's been moved back 18 millimeters raised 46 millimeters the angle adjusted and now uses swan neck mounts the underside or low pressure side of the wing is less Disturbed with these mounts and thus more effective and again what's really impressive here is that we've got over 300 pounds of downforce over the standard A110 and yet with essentially no drag penalty okay so a few comments on what it was like to drive as I had the opportunity to hop in both the A110 GT with the standard longer travel softer suspension as well as the a110r the track Focus variant with stickier tires the GT had a very joyful Lively Behavior with lots of movement but all in a manner that never made you feel lacking in control while cornering in the a110r it was immediately apparent that it rode flatter and with more grip thanks to the tire suspension and Aero upgrades the overall operating window is simply greater quicker acceleration tighter control and a wider traction Circle regardless there's a playfulness that both cars have that I'm always reminded exist when I sit in a lightweight car and let me be clear there's no doubt that bloated heavy sports cars today can have incredible handling thanks to Modern engineering and equally impressive tires but there's a seriousness that comes along with it there's a rigid set of rules that you must follow when driving heavy cars and if you follow the rules everything goes right but if you make a mistake the penalty is harsher and you end up losing control it's almost the opposite in light cars like this Alpine mistakes are almost rewarding as recovering is easy and simple never fully penalizing you for exceeding the tire's limits this predictable Lively Behavior at the limit puts a smile on your face at least it did mine a huge thank you to Alpine for letting me be among the very few to drive this car in America having me out to the Miami GP and for sponsoring this video and I'll close out with a brief clip of Tom Bloomquist showing me how to actually drive in the A110 GT4 car thanks Tom for the unforgettable apps if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below foreign what thehello everyone and welcome this video is sponsored by Alpine who kindly invited me to come check out the Alpine a110r in Miami and also attend the Formula One race as you can imagine I had to think long and hard about whether to say yes especially because the A110 is a car that checks nearly all the boxes of what I consider to be the perfect formula small and compact genuinely lightweight a relatively soft and relatively long travel suspension and a further separate itself from those already in this very exclusive territory a mid-mounted engine with real torque sending power to the rear wheels now unfortunately my ideal formula isn't all that popular in the country I live in and alas we don't get the A110 here in the states something I've wanted to happen for many years but you can imagine the joy I felt knowing I'd get to try out the most extreme variant here on American Shores ahead of the Miami GP and in the company of some pretty talented drivers so let's dive into the engineering of the A1 10r starting with weight as it's fundamentally the most critical aspect of this car's design the standard A110 tips the scales at 2429 pounds admittedly that's when optioned as low as possible as it goes as high as 2513 pounds fully equipped the a110r drops that under 2400 pounds and lightweight packages are always welcome in my opinion but they're often a little insulting as manufacturers talk about how important it is to remove Weight only for you to find out that the car's curb weight is four thousand pounds like cool I guess but in this case we're taking an already very light car and pulling real weight out of it compared to the a110s the r removes about 75 pounds of weight carbon fiber Wheels help remove nearly 28 pounds of unsprung rotational Mass carbon fiber seats pull out 11 pounds paired with a 6 point harness that takes out another three pounds the carbon fiber hood takes out nearly six pounds for versus the aluminum Hood it replaces and at the back of the car you'll notice there's no rear window this entirely carbon fiber rear window meaning yes it's opaque saves nearly nine pounds with a cascading effect as you can now remove the rear view mirror the engine bay partition glass behind the driver as well as the engine cover now while a car being lightweight is rare these days without context having low mass alone isn't all that impressive and in America unfortunately this benefit is often left overlooked presumably by those who haven't yet discovered the joy of cornering because let's face it by modern standards lightweight cars are often a bit gutless fundamentally pulling power out of a car is necessary in order to make it lighter more power requires a bigger engine it requires a beefier transmission to handle the torque with larger differentials and driveshafts more power means you need more cooling so you get a larger radiator bigger fans and more coolant more power means you need more stopping power increasing the size eyes and weight of the braking components all of this is to say when a manufacturer sets out to design a lightweight car High horsepower is fundamentally at odds with the overall goal so the cars in the lightweight category in my opinion anything coming in under about 3 000 pounds these cars get dismissed so frequently because they don't have the power to compete in terms of acceleration with similarly priced competitors that's one of the things that's so cool about this Alpine it doesn't fit that narrative with about 300 horsepower and weighing under 2 400 pounds the power to weight ratio dips into a territory that lets it compete not only around corners but in a straight line as well Alpine claims a zero to 100 kilometer per hour or 62 mile per hour in just 3.9 seconds it's genuinely quick in part thanks to a small 1.8 liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder power is up from the standard A110 thanks to an additional 0.4 bar or about 6 PSI of Turbo boost though it's still quicker than the a110s even with equal power again this goes back to the weight reduction and importantly the carbon fiber Wheels since rotational weight has a large impact on acceleration so again 0 to 60 in the threes but with a 1.8 liter and it is worth mentioning from the very beginning the car was designed to be limited to a 1.8 liter engine any design is about choosing where you want to compromise and for what reasons in the case of the A110 sacrifices were made to enable the overall goal to succeed create a lightweight Nimble chassis paired with a predictable and well handling suspension that means a double Wishbone suspension in both the front and the back as double Wishbone suspensions minimize your camber changes throughout the length of wheel travel optimizing grip and providing predictable handling the challenge is that double Wishbone suspensions are wide and encroach in towards the center of the car even more so when like Alpine you want a relatively long travel suspension which now means even longer control arms it's a packaging compromise in the name of good handling your front trunk is smaller to allow room for the a arms and again your engine size is limited there's only so much space you have to fit a laterally mounted inline four-cylinder this is part of why there's no manual transmission offered a dual clutch transmission provided better packaging in the space requirements allowing for the widest suspension control arms as possible and though I'd love to see a manual transmission offered it's a beautiful thing to see this suspension methodology implemented double Wishbone suspensions are increasingly rare and seemingly even more rare are sports car suspensions with significant travel and a relatively soft ride there's a mentality that's stiffer means better that it means more grip but in real-world road conditions this is often untrue regardless many marketing teams have leaned into this promoting the stiffness and flat ride of the road cars but comfort and grip don't have to be at odds with each other with a properly designed suspension since the a110r is a road legal car but designed to be used at the racetrack of course the suspension is firmed up in anticipation of smoother Road surfaces the a110s is significantly stiffer than the base A110 so there's not a huge jump in stiffness going from s to R the front and rear suspensions both get 10 stiffer Springs with the front rear sway bars 10 and 25 stiffer respectively this makes a very meaningful impact in how much role the body of the car has while cornering it's about 30 percent less roll than the A110 and 15 percent less roll than the a110s with a roll rate of just 2.3 degrees per G of lateral acceleration down from 3.3 and 2.7 degrees per G another reason for the stiffer Springs here is to allow for a lower ride height it's 10 millimeters lower than the a110s and at the track you can lower it another 10 millimeters thanks to the threaded shock bodies the dampers are also adjustable with 20 clicks of adjustment to provide a range of compression and rebound finally the stiffer Springs help compensate for this model's additional downforce so the standard A110 starts out with a 4456 front rear weight distribution the a110s with the Aero package adds about 300 pounds of downforce on top of this with the downforce nearly matching the weight distribution profile the a110r takes a different strategy there's similar down Force but its shifted rearward with a balanced Alpine says favors greater stability and turns and at high speeds and while it achieves similar downforce to the A110 s pack Aero in its lowered track position it does so with five percent less drag and more impressively equal drag to the standard A110 this means better efficiency better acceleration and helps it achieve a higher top speed of 177 miles per hour the fastest of the A110 variants starting at the front The downforce Story begins with the carbon fiber lip carried over from the a110s moving up the front hood is designed partially to reduce drag but also to redirect air over the front windscreen at high speeds reducing the pressure on the glass underneath you have the a110's standard integral flat floor with carbon fiber side skirts now added to widen the flat bottom of the car improving down force and reducing undercarriage turbulence looking at the side of the car you'll also notice the front wheel is more open than the rear the fronts are optimized for better brake cooling leaving a more open design since the front axle handles most of the braking versus the rear wheels which are more enclosed optimized to reduce drag and a quick comment on the rear brakes the Alpine A110 was actually the first car to use brembo's all-aluminum ECS caliper these calipers have a built-in electronic parking brake which also serves as a Fail-Safe fully able to stop the car in case the hydraulic system fails and importantly in the context of the A110 being aluminum instead of cast iron they remove 5.5 pounds of unsprung weight from the rear axle so at the back you'll notice the rear diffuser sweeping up helping to accelerate the airflow underneath the car and thus improved downforce while also reducing drag working hand in hand with the rear wing above interestingly the blade of the rear wing is the same as the a110s but with some seemingly simple changes to have dramatically improved its Effectiveness it's been moved back 18 millimeters raised 46 millimeters the angle adjusted and now uses swan neck mounts the underside or low pressure side of the wing is less Disturbed with these mounts and thus more effective and again what's really impressive here is that we've got over 300 pounds of downforce over the standard A110 and yet with essentially no drag penalty okay so a few comments on what it was like to drive as I had the opportunity to hop in both the A110 GT with the standard longer travel softer suspension as well as the a110r the track Focus variant with stickier tires the GT had a very joyful Lively Behavior with lots of movement but all in a manner that never made you feel lacking in control while cornering in the a110r it was immediately apparent that it rode flatter and with more grip thanks to the tire suspension and Aero upgrades the overall operating window is simply greater quicker acceleration tighter control and a wider traction Circle regardless there's a playfulness that both cars have that I'm always reminded exist when I sit in a lightweight car and let me be clear there's no doubt that bloated heavy sports cars today can have incredible handling thanks to Modern engineering and equally impressive tires but there's a seriousness that comes along with it there's a rigid set of rules that you must follow when driving heavy cars and if you follow the rules everything goes right but if you make a mistake the penalty is harsher and you end up losing control it's almost the opposite in light cars like this Alpine mistakes are almost rewarding as recovering is easy and simple never fully penalizing you for exceeding the tire's limits this predictable Lively Behavior at the limit puts a smile on your face at least it did mine a huge thank you to Alpine for letting me be among the very few to drive this car in America having me out to the Miami GP and for sponsoring this video and I'll close out with a brief clip of Tom Bloomquist showing me how to actually drive in the A110 GT4 car thanks Tom for the unforgettable apps if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below foreign what the\n"