When Renault revived French sports car marque Alpine a few years back, it gave us the sublime A110 sports car - which, when you drove it, felt a lot like a Gallic version of a Lotus; and that's high praise indeed. Well, good news: as part of the Alpine Business Unit Development, Groupe Renault and Group Lotus have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to study a number of areas of cooperation. This, we have to say, is the most natural fit for two car companies to combine in the history of all car companies.
The light fantastics
Primarily, Alpine and Lotus will work on the joint development of an electric vehicle (EV) sports car. Lotus is already working on an EV hypercar named the Evija, while of course Alpine's parent company Renault has plenty of experience with electric, already manufacturing many zero-emission vehicles for public consumption such as the Zoe city car.
The Alpine and Lotus teams will conduct a comprehensive feasibility study for the joint engineering, design and development of an EV sports car, by 'leveraging the resources, expertise and facilities of the respective entities in both France and the UK'. The MoU will also allow the two companies to go further and explore the development of a joint services offer combining their engineering expertise - part of this will include a collaboration to use Alpine's motorsport platform, covering F1 to Formula E and also endurance racing.
'Natural fit'
Laurent Rossi, CEO of Alpine, said: "The signing of this MoU with Lotus shows the lean and smart approach we're implementing as part of the new Alpine brand strategy. Both brands have an amazing legacy and we are most excited to start this work together, from engineering tailored solutions to developing a next-generation EV sports car. This collaboration, along with our transformation, marks the beginning of a new era in which we'll be taking the Alpine name and line-up to the future. We're putting F1 at the heart of our business, leveraging our in-house expertise and best-in-class partners - such as Lotus - to inject our cars with leading-edge performance, technology and motorisation."
Phil Popham, CEO of Lotus Cars, added: "Today's announcement is the first step in what is set to be a hugely rewarding collaboration between our iconic brands. We are proud to be working with Groupe Renault in this collaboration - sharing Lotus' technical expertise and abilities, and leveraging our long track record of successful collaborations. Our companies have much in common - from a pioneering pedigree in light-weighting, to championship-winning sportscars which perform as impressively on the road as they do in the motorsports arena. It is a natural fit in many ways and the co-development of an EV sports car is hugely exciting for our companies, our fans and customers around the world. The joint-services element of our agreement will additionally make our engineering expertise available to those wishing to engage our innovations."