Alpine A110 Production Starts in Dieppe

You can tell that this is a French project. If Audi made it, the car would be derived from an existing platform and be launched on time. However, the A110 was revealed about a year later than scheduled and is only now entering production, quite a while after its reveal.

Still, this means that if you are crazy enough to spend €50,000 or more on something made by Renault, you will be able to do so.

Regarding quality, it doesn't come anywhere near its German rivals. There are no cup holders, no glovebox and the trunk is sub-par. But if driving is all that it's supposed to do, the A110 is an ace.

Lightweight in the real sense, the car only weighs about 1.1 tons. This has two added benefits. Number one is that it doesn't need a pot of power. And the second is a suspension that hasn't been stiffened to cope with the weight.

Assembled at the Dieppe factory, the A110 is constructed mostly from aluminum. Though some of the buttons and switches come from Renault, most of the other parts are bespoke.

“Investment totaled more than €35 million, 151 people have been recruited, and the factory has been refurbished. The excellence and French-style elegance that the brand stands for are more than just claims; today, in Dieppe they are an industrial reality,” declared Carlos Ghosn.

In parallel to this investment plan, the Dieppe plant has increased workforce levels by 60 percent with the recruitment of 151 new staff over the past two years, and all 392 employees have been given 140 hours training specific to the production of the Alpine A110.