Renault to revive Alpine?
;)
Renault appears to be planning to revive the Alpine sports car brand.
Alpine started in the 1950s as a manufacturer of Renault-powered sports cars and had great success in rallying, winning the first World Rally Championship in the early 1970s, when the Alpine A110 was a sort of junior Porsche 911. The last Alpine sports car was made in 1995, although it was sold as the Renault A610 in some markets, as Chrysler had inherited the Alpine name from Sunbeam.
Now Renault wants to push upmarket (who doesn't?), and the new Alpine is apparently based on the Nissan 350Z. The link between the two comes from the fact that Renault has management control of Nissan and Nissan's legendary boss, Carlos Ghosn, has just become head of Renault. It is also rumoured that the new Alpine has been partly developed by Porsche - prototypes have been spotted close to Porsche's German headquarters.
