ALPINE A110

We knew it was great to drive before we got it six months ago, but irk in everyday use? Our final report tells all would compromises

- ANDREW FRANKEL

FINAL REPORT
MILEAGE 8211

WHY WE RAN IT

To see if one of the world’s best driver’s cars can also prove sufficiently easy to live with for it still to make sense

It is part of the human condition to take amazing things for granted. You press a switch, a light comes on; turn a tap and water pours forth. Buy a new car - an almost impossibly complex confection of metal, plastic, rubber, oil, water, electrics and electronics - and you don't just hope it will do a few laps of the planet while being left out in all conditions, baked by the sun, entombed by snow, and still work perfectly, all for the most miserly amount of basic maintenance: you expect it.

Which makes me wonder why I never took the Alpine A110 for granted, not once in the six months it's just spent with me. I never failed to look forward to any journey, never once passed it without at least glancing in its direction. You might say it has something to do with the car not being mine and the knowledge that, sooner or later, someone was going to take it away on a date not of my choosing. But I've had a few long-termers in my time, many far more valuable than this, and I've liked most and admired more, yet when the time comes for them to depart, I'm pretty good at moving on. They're just cars, after all. The only two I still miss are a BMW i8 (see p62) and a McLaren 720S, for hopefully self-evident reasons.