Styling
There's no earthly way you could mistake the R for any other member of the A110 family. It's hard to know where the metal on the car stops and the extensive swathes of carbon begin, in all truth. The bonnet, the roof, the rear clamshell cover, the front splitter, the swan-neck rear wing, all the side skirts and lower detailing... heck, even the 18-inch
wheels are made of the lightweight stuff. And when you're starting with such a good-looking car as the 21st-century A110 in the first place, then adding such undiluted aesthetic purpose to the formula can only be a winning move. This car turns heads like few things this side of a Lamborghini could ever hope to manage.
Interior
Again, we're big fans of the elegant simplicity of the regular A110's cabin, complete with its little French
tricolores dotted about the place, and layering on top another racy material - this time microfibre, rather than carbon - only serves to heighten the pre-drive ambience of the R no end. The man-made material swathes nearly everything you can see inside the Alpine, and then to complete to authenticity of a track car's passenger compartment, there are red fabric loops in place of the door handles, a feature you'll most commonly find on
top-end GT Department Porsches, and a pair of glorious carbon bucket seats equipped with Sabelt six-point harnesses. Admittedly, getting those on and off again every time you get into the A110 R is a bit of a faff, especially if you're no racing snake in the build department, but there's little doubt the anticipation levels ramp up several notches once you're installed behind the beautifully proportioned steering wheel. Doubly so, when you realise there's no interior mirror and nothing but an upholstered bulkhead lurking behind the pair of seats.
Practicality
Practicality be damned in the Alpine A110 R. Frankly, even the regular car has a notable shortage of useful interior stowage spaces and two feeble boots, one at the front measuring 100 litres and the other behind the mid-mounted engine adding another 96 litres to proceedings. The R is therefore not a car you're ever likely to go grand-touring in, but even living with one day-to-day would be tough work. Not impossible, though, as we shall see from the exhilarating way the car drives, but... not exactly super-accommodating either.
Performance
When you're starting with a car which only weighs (just) the wrong side of 1,100 kilos in either of its specifications, any weight-saving measures enacted for this flagship version are clearly going to be incremental rather than monumental. But even so, what with all the carbon and the rear-window delete, and other shavings from the mass here and there, Alpine has managed to get the A110 R down to an admirable 1,082kg. On top of this, it's the most powerful model the company has put out to date (see Value, below), running a 300hp iteration of the 1.8-litre four-cylinder turbo that was seen in the now-defunct
Renault Megane RS 300 Trophy. Torque is slightly pegged back from the Renault's 400Nm peak to just 340Nm here in the A110 R, but that still means this Alpine has 8hp and 20Nm more than the S, as well as 20kg less bulk to shift about.
It means the R is the first A110 to dip below the four-second barrier for 0-62mph (3.9 seconds, 0.5 seconds quicker than the S), while it'll also top out at 177mph when the S is all done and dusted at 161mph. On the roads, it certainly feels considerably more rabid and immediate than other A110s, the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox rarely struggling to keep up with the stunning power delivery of the R. Best of all, sitting in front of the four-pot's barking induction and with less noise isolation between you and the A110's exhaust, the soundtrack of the A110 R is all-encompassing and wonderful, without being horrendously, ear-splittingly loud. With rapier throttle response, minimal lag and magnificent brakes, the Alpine is an incredibly enjoyable thing in which to exploit the inherent, baseline performance.
Also, because it has a small-capacity turbocharged four in its midriff, it's not terrible on fuel, with a claimed 31-34mpg not looking too profligate when you're just churning along a motorway at 70mph with the transmission sitting in seventh. Admittedly, we saw 22.8mpg over what were mainly an exuberantly driven 130 miles on test, but that's by the by. So while the Alpine might look all rowdy and uncompromising, it is already demonstrating that you can drive one on public roads without encountering too much hardship.
Ride & Handling
Years ago, there was a sci-fi book by Timothy Zahn in which a squadron of space pilots were hard-wired into their Hammerhead fighters directly through their brains, meaning they could control their ships by the power of thought. Well, that's the A110 R. It's bordering on the preternaturally agile in terms of the handling; as in, you think, it goes. The steering, the balance, the way the front of the car gets itself immediately turned in to a bend, allowing you as the driver to neatly clip the apex and then fire it out onto the next straight, courtesy of its supreme body and wheel control... it's quite simply a phenomenal, phenomenal car with some exquisite chassis tuning. Yes, in many ways the R provides a completely different experience behind the wheel to the car at the other end of the A110 scale, which floats and bounds its way across lumpen tarmac, where the 300hp version keeps itself as rock-solid as it can, but it's still an unmitigated joy to drive the R.
The best news is, though, that the A110 R doesn't sacrifice all road-going comfort in its pursuit of dynamic acuity. In fact, with the higher-quality dampers installed and reduced unsprung mass thanks to the carbon rims, this car rides noticeably better - even on poorly surfaced back roads - than the A110 S did. It's an informative machine to travel in, granted, with a direct communication line from the tyres' contact patches to the driver via the base of the low-mounted bucket seats, but the suspension never smashes into its bumps stops nor thuds its way through deeper imperfections and craters in the roads. Instead, the overall lightness of the car permeates everything it does, meaning it's never uncomfortable, and is often surprisingly supple and serene. So while it can be a hassle doing up those six-point harnesses, and the seats aren't padded in a way that would make cross-continental trips viable, and the cabin is normally quite loud, and the car is intense in the way it responds to minor movements of the wheel, it's weirdly and rewardingly relaxing to drive it steadily to the point that using one daily... doesn't seem as ridiculous an idea as it does when you first clap eyes on the A110 R's carbon-slathered exterior form.
Value
The R is basically sold as the Turini now, as we move into 2025, with a starting price of £91,490 set against the entry-level model's £54,490 ticket. That obviously looks steep, especially as both cars share the same 1.8-litre architecture, but for the level of performance and ability you're getting from the A110 R, the thick end of 92 grand doesn't seem so bad to us - especially as you won't be able to buy a petrol-powered Alpine for too much longer.
You might recall, though, that we earlier said the R was the most powerful production car Alpine had released
up to now. But that was when we drove this car; since then, the absolutely, positively, definitely the last, final, no-more-than-this edition of the A110 has been announced. It's the A110 R Ultime, which will be ultra-limited in build (110 units, fittingly). It ramps the 1.8's outputs up again, to 350hp and 420Nm, but it only reduces the 0-62mph by a tenth to 3.8 seconds (traction issues in getting that extra grunt down through the rear Michelin Pilot Sport Cups, we guess) - and it costs from €265,000, which is roughly £222,600 on current exchange rates (at the time of writing). Still think the £91k R is too expensive? No, thought not.
Verdict
What Alpine has done here with its final, major take on the A110 is no different to what Porsche does when it uprates a
GT car to RS specification; which is to say, make it considerably more focused and intense, and charge a lot of extra money to punters for the privilege of owning it. But where the slightly firmer A110 S always felt like it had spoiled the standard Alpine's wonderfully idiosyncratic handling character for not enough kinematic gain, the R fully commits to its ethos and delivers a driving experience every bit as exemplary as the 2017 original revival. Indeed, as mid-engined sports cars go, few in the world could ever hope to match or exceed what the magnificent Alpine A110 R can serve up to its lucky, lucky driver. We're sure this brilliant French company will continue to make great cars for driving enthusiasts in the electric era, but will they ever quite match the exalted heights of this 300hp jewel? In all honesty, we sincerely doubt it, because this is just a terrific car across the board.