Alpine's first car must represent the brand in a similar way that the 911 does for Porsche, according to Renault's design boss
Reborn Alpine’s first car must fulfil a similar role to the Porsche 911 by establishing what the brand stands for, according to Renault design chief Laurens van den Acker.
Renault-owned Alpine’s revival will kick off with a £50,000 two-seat sports car that is due to hit the market in 2016. Although the car is likely to rival the Porsche Boxster in terms of performance, van den Acker said it needed to create an iconic aura like the 911.
“The challenge with Alpine is to somehow fill this gap of more than 20 years and do a product that is believable,” said van den Acker. “I feel the car really needs to create the foundation of Alpine. We need to create the 911 of Alpine. If we do that properly then we can consider [making] cars like the Panamera.”
The first Alpine is a joint project with Caterham, but van den Acker emphasised that he didn’t want to “do a Toyota-Subaru” and create almost identical cars like the GT86 and BRZ coupés.
“That wouldn’t work for them or for us,” he said. “The two cars need to be clearly different. It needs to be not just a sports car, but also a car for aesthetes.”