The name Alpine is close to the hearts of many French car enthusiasts. The Renault-owned manufacturer made machines that knew how to carve up the street of the track. Alpine hasn't produced a car of its own since 1996, but the horsepower wars was supposed to rekindle the Alpine flame.

Unfortunately the worldwide economic meltdown extinguished the hopes for the brand's revival. Renault's Chief operating officer Patrick Pelata told Autocar: "It's a casualty of the crisis."

Then again we knew this was coming. The new Alpine was supposed to share a platform with the upcoming Nissan 200SX. So two weeks ago when we got word that Nissan killed the 200SX, we should have also seen it as the death of the new Alpine.

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