Renault Alpine A120 to be unveiled next month

Renault is getting ready to unveil its new Alpine sports car at the Geneva show in March. Prior to that, the company has slated 16 February as the date for the Alpine brand to be brought back to life – presumably with some sort of teaser for what’s expected to be called the A120.

Likely to cost from about £40,000, the car will draw heavily on Alpine’s great days in racing and rallying. It won’t be an outright powerhouse, going instead for a strong balance of engine output and light weight achieved through the use of modern low-fat materials and engineering methods.

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Even now, we don’t know what’s going to be under the A120’s bonnet. It appears to be a toss-up between Renault’s 1.6 and 1.8-litre petrol engines – whichever of these it is, of course, it’ll be tuned to the nines.

Talking of which, Renault’s plans for Alpine also include a more powerful version with as much as 300bhp – plenty of fun, when the vehicle’s kerb weight is expected to be around 1100kg. This might be along in time for the 2018 model year – though it’ll have to share the limelight with an Alpine SUV as Renault follows the trend for sportscar makers to feather their nests by playing the volumes game.