Alpine Is Still Talking About Coming to the U.S.

Photo: Alpine

The Alpine A110 is one of the few genuinely exciting cars on the market somewhere in the world today. A mid-engine, rear-wheel drive sports car, it was unveiled in 2017 at Geneva and many of us have been looking at it jealously from the other side of the pond ever since. There may be hope, yet, with Renault CEO Luca de Meo saying Thursday that they are working on a plan with the dealer group AutoNation to sell Alpines here in the States.

The details are a bit scarce, but here’s a bit from Bloomberg:

The French carmaker is also pursuing some other options for Alpine to move into North America, Chief Executive Officer Luca de Meo said Thursday. Renault has made Alpine, which was restarted in 2017 and makes only the A110 sports coupe, one of the pillars of its new strategy.

“It’s not easy because we are not present in the US and we have to start from scratch,” de Meo said on the sidelines of Renault’s earnings presentation. Working with AutoNation, helmed by former Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley, could take the form of a partnership that goes beyond placing cars in dealerships, he said.

It’s not clear if De Meo has a timeline for any of this, and I emailed Alpine to see if they can tell me more. (I will update if they get back.) This, of course, is also not the first time that Alpine has teased us by throwing the idea out there, and I’m also not entirely convinced that the A110 would do big numbers in the U.S. anyway, as refined two-door sports cars are not exactly a growth segment in America.

I do know, however, that I would buy an A110, so that’s at least one sale if you’re listening, Luca. It seems worth it to do all of this just for that.