Welcome to the best thing we’ve seen so far this year—a higher-riding, wider Alpine A110 inspired by the rally cars of the company’s past. Unfortunately, the A110 SportsX is not a third derivative of the model, to be sold alongside the standard car and the stiffer, lower, more focused A110S.
It’s what the company calls a ‘styling exercise’—a car cooked up by presumably very bored engineers and designers that “explores a new facet of sportiness.”
Based on the base-spec A110 Pure (which is actually all the A110 you really need), the body and the track are 80mm wider than standard, meaning the SportsX isn’t that much narrower than a Range Rover. Meanwhile, the ride height has been raised by a whopping 60mm for more ground clearance.
Alpine doesn’t say whether it’s done anything to the engine, so assume it uses the standard 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine making 249hp and 324Nm. We’ll need a go to verify, naturally.
You cannot buy a A110 SportsX, and that, dear friends, is a crying shame. But for €150,000 (around P8.42 million), Alpine will sell you an A110 Rally, its Signatech-developed rally car available to privateer teams competing in the R-GT category.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
