Alpine is getting ready to load its A110 Pikes Peak racer onto an airplane for the trip to Colorado that will end up with it making another rapid ascent from sea level. But before any of that happens the car has been put through its paces on mountain roads closer to (Alpine’s) home in conditions that look much tougher than what the A110 can expect in the U.S. We’ve already seen realistic official renderings of the Pikes Peak racer, but these new images give us our first chance to see the real car on real roads. And if anything, the A110 looks even tougher in the flesh, its matte black hood and huge carbon splitter contrasting starkly with the white cloud-filled sky and the blue paint on the nose, which is arguably the least crazy end of the car.
The blue paint on the front end and roof
transitions into white via a giant ‘A’ logo on the door, that white section
wrapping around a tail topped by a gigantic two-piece carbon spoiler that looms
over more carbon aero devices below and to the sides of the rear bumper. Alpine
started the project with an A110 GT4 Evo customer race car, which, at 1,080 kg, is already very light. But that has been trimmed to just 950 kg in Pikes Peak form, while the 493 hp 1.8-liter engine makes
almost twice as much power as a 297 hp A110 road car and has been
optimized to work at high altitudes.
The car will be driven by Alpine A110
Rally driver Raphael Astier, who already holds a Pikes Peak Time Attack 1 class
record and had a chance to get behind the wheel during the recent test sessions
in the Alps. Astier claimed that an win is not the target of the project, but
some silverware would certainly help with the marketing push for Alpine’s
potential entry to the North American market with its new generation of
electric cars.
