Thursday, June 08, 2006

Infiniti in Europe, the future of Renault and... Alpine?

To make a closure on the discussions about Infiniti in Europe (check previous entries) Auto-Future would like to kindly ask Renault to bring back the Alpine brand. This is a well-known and loved European prestige-sport brand that existed under the Renault umbrella some 15 years ago. The reborn of this brand would allow Renault to move further into the prestige segment and maybe targeting (in a few years) such coveted machinery as Porsche and Aston Martin. For that purpose Renault now has available credible technical platforms in the shapes of the G-coupé and future Skyline GT-R cars. The underpinnings of these vehicles could be improved and the design of Alpine managed to reflect its heritage. And Renault could get a commercial liasion to its Formula 1 winning campaign. On a closing note I would like to give an example of the passion and “halo” that the Alpine brand carries: a Portuguese designer is currently building a “modern-Alpine” (Ernesto Freitas - Lusomotors). Not just designing or dreaming but actually building the car! His interpretation of a modern Alpine is a RWD vehicle, a small sports-car with central V6 engine. This example could well be the entry-level model of the Alpine family. Check his efforts in the video that shows a scale model being machined.
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