The 345bhp Alpine A110 R Ultime Is A £275,000 Goodbye

The sensational Alpine A110 isn’t long for this world, and though the planned electric replacement is sounding increasingly promising, we’re still going to be very sad to see it go. Luckily, the company’s preparing a proper send off for it, the Alpine A110 R Ultime. First unveiled last October, we’ve now got a fresh batch of details on the most extreme iteration of the A110 yet.

Using the already fairly serious A110 R as its base, power from the 1.8-litre turbocharged four-pot has been lifted to 345bhp, if you feed it the 102 RON race fuel it’s been mapped to run on. Fill up with 98 or 99 RON stuff, and you’ll still get 325bhp, a leap from the R’s 296bhp. Torque, meanwhile, is up from 251 to 310lb ft.

The power hike comes from a new turbocharger, plus forged pistons and conrods, and to cope with the extra grunt, the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox has been replaced with a stronger six-speed unit. 330mm AP Racing bi-material brakes help keep everything under control and are shrouded by new forged wheels – 18 inches at the front, 19 at the rear – wrapped in bespoke Michelin PS2 Cup rubber.

A more aggressive aero setup with an adjustable rear wing, a new splitter and canards up front, and new rear endplates, contributes to an extra 160kg of downforce at top speed compared to a regular A110 R. A set of two-way hydraulically adjustable Öhlins TTX dampers, more often found on proper racing cars, underpins the car.

The result of all this engineering work, which was started by a ‘commando’ team in Alpine’s engineering department with no expectation that it would ever make production, is a car that does 0-62mph in 3.8 seconds. Alpine hasn’t quoted the top speed yet, but has said it’s also around 20 seconds faster than a regular A110 R around the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

Alpine is keen to emphasise the level of personalisation available with the Ultime. Opt for the top-tier ‘Atelier Sur-Mesure’ catalogue and you can choose from 28 exterior colours, and from 14 shades of Alcantara or 10 of leather for the inside.

Just 110 Ultimes will be made, and naturally, they won’t come cheap. Like, really not cheap. In France, pricing kicks off at €265,000 – around £222,000. 30 of them, though, will come in the ‘La Bleue’ specification seen here, with its distinctive gradient paint scheme and much blue leather inside. All that extra blueness will cost you a staggering €330,000, or around £276,000.

It remains to be seen how many Ultimes will come to the UK, or how much it’ll cost once it lands here, but either way, could it really be worth at least six times more than a lightly used example of the phenomenal standard A110? We’ll have to wait and find out.