Alpine A110

The 2017 era of the Alpine A110 captures a specific moment in the 600-car catalogue: a sports car approach that did not chase the highest headline figures. Ranked 540th of 600 for power, with 249 bhp, the A110 sits towards the lower end of outright output, yet its 0-100 km/h time of 4.5 seconds places it ahead of 210 cars in the catalogue. The numbers point to a different priority, where the relationship between its components matters as much as the size of the performance figures.

The A110’s defining position comes from a combination that appears in only 30 of the 600 cars: an inline-4 engine paired with rear-wheel drive. Add turbocharging to that layout and the catalogue contains 58 examples, making this particular arrangement a notable thread within a very broad collection. Its 1.8-litre inline-4 produces 249 bhp and 320 Nm, sending power through the rear wheels to reach a 250 km/h top speed. The result is a car whose place in the catalogue is not built around dominating any single metric, but around a focused specification that is less common than the individual figures suggest.

That focus also shapes its position as a collector’s choice. The A110 is a French sports car from Alpine, a marque founded in France in 1955, and its used price of £42,000 places it at rank 475 of 600, meaning it is more expensive than 125 cars in the catalogue. At £169 per bhp, it asks a collector to consider more than power for the money. It occupies a different space from cars that pursue higher outputs, higher speeds, or stronger numerical rankings.

For a garage built from 600 possibilities, the Alpine A110 represents a decision to accept less power in exchange for a very particular specification balance. Choosing it means leaving some performance rankings on the table while gaining a rear-wheel-drive, turbocharged inline-4 sports car configuration that only 11 catalogue cars share. It is the kind of addition that changes the shape of a collection through its details, not through a race to the top of a chart.