Renault merges Renault Sport with Alpine

ALMOST five months after the original announcement, Renault Sport has been rolled under the Alpine Cars banner as the French sportscar icon powers towards an all-electric future.

First announced back in January, the move forms part of Renualt’s all-encompassing ‘Renaulution’ strategic plan and was pre-empted by the rebranding of the brand’s Formula 1 team into the ‘Alpine F1 Team’.

“As part of the reorganisation of the Renault Group by brand, it is essential that the various entities that make up the Business Unit bear the Alpine name and embody the values and ambitions of the brand,” Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi said.

“Alpine aims to be a premium sports brand at the forefront of innovation and technology. Alpine Cars with its expertise and experience in sports vehicles is a master card in achieving our goals.”

Alpine product performance and engineering director Robert Bonetto added that while the teams behind modern classics like the R5 Turbo and Clio V6 as well as the Megane RS Trophy A110 would still be in place to support customers, they would also be “embarking on a new dynamic, rich in projects carried out with the support of the Alpine Racing teams and all of Renault Group’s businesses”.

“This is an extremely exciting time for our engineers,” he said.

What all this means for the future of models like the Megane RS and A110 remains to be seen, but Alpine is wasting no time laying the groundwork for its electric future, announcing a new co-development partnership with British sportscar specialist Lotus earlier in the year.

Together the two brands will develop a shared electric sportscar architecture with both bringing some significant technical know-how to the table in form of their own exploits, as well as the support and expertise of their respective parent companies, namely the Alliance and the Geely Group.

Renault Australia has sold 13 Megane RS’ so far this year ending April with the range being trimmed from six variants to two in March while Alpine has shifted just one A110.