Renault’s push to bring the revived Alpine brand back from the dead took another positive step recently when the French automaker invested in plant capacity to accelerate its plans to build up to 6,000 sports cars per year under the Alpine brand. All in all, Renault has spent a little over $42 million in upgrading its production facility in Dieppe, France to accommodate the production of the much-hyped A110 sports car.

My fascination and love for the new Alpine A110 is an open secret here at TopSpeed. I’ve been waiting for this car to arrive ever since Renault announced the return of the Alpine brand a few years ago. Now that it has a production facility, all systems are 'go' for the new A110 to return to our lives.

It’s been 22 years since Renault shut Alpine down. The return of the brand is a long time coming, but I’m excited to see it now finally coming to fruition. The new A110 is a fitting first offering too. It’s essentially the spiritual successor of the OG A110 that went on sale in 1961 and was in production until 1977. It’s without question Alpine’s most popular model. To see the name brought back to life after all those years in the shed is as exciting a development as there’s been in the auto industry this year.

The new A110 was introduced at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year. It melted more than a few hearts — mine, included — when it made its debut, and the hype surrounding its official production date has gone up in recent months. That’s why this news is a big deal for those of us who have been anxiously waiting for the arrival of the A110.

Now that it has a facility, work can finally be done on a saucy-looking sports car that features a 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that produces 252 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque, good enough to help the sports car accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds.

As exciting as this development is, there is some sadness attached to it. Let’s get the big one out of the way: the Alpine A110 is not coming to the U.S. Yup. Ouch, right?

If that’s not bad enough, those who are getting the sports coupe will have to act quickly on scoring one because Alpine is limiting production to just 1,955 units, a nod to the year the company was founded. Each model will carry a price of €58,000, which converts to around $68,000. A race-spec A110 Cup version will also be available at a price of €100,000, or just under $120,000.

References

Renault Alpine

Read our full review on the 2018 Alpine A110.

Read our full speculative review on the 2019 Renault Alpine Convertible.

Read more Renault news.