The Alpine A106 was the first of a line of light-weight
glass-fibre
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...
bodied,
rear-engined
In automobile design, a rear-engine design layout places the engine at the rear of the vehicle. The center of gravity of the engine itself is behind the rear axle. This is not to be confused with the center of gravity of the whole vehicle, as an im ...
two-door
coupé
A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors.
The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...
s produced for a young competition-oriented Dieppe based
Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...
dealer called
Jean Rédélé
Jean Rédélé (17 May 1922, Dieppe, Seine-Maritime – 10 August 2007 Paris), was an automotive pioneer, pilot and founder of the French automotive brand Alpine.
With a HEC diploma, he was the youngest Renault dealer in France, with a dealershi ...
. The car was based on mechanical components from the
Renault 4CV
The Renault 4CV (french: quatre chevaux, as if spelled ''quat'chevaux'') is a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive, 4-door economy supermini manufactured and marketed by the French manufacturer Renault from August 1947 through July 1961. It was the ...
.
Origins
![1954 Alpine Le Marquis Prototype](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/1954_Alpine_Le_Marquis_Prototype.jpg)
The car was inspired by the “Marquis” a
Renault 4CV
The Renault 4CV (french: quatre chevaux, as if spelled ''quat'chevaux'') is a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive, 4-door economy supermini manufactured and marketed by the French manufacturer Renault from August 1947 through July 1961. It was the ...
based coupé, a design acquired for production under licence in the United States but which had never entered production. More direct inspiration came from the “Allemano”, another
Renault 4CV
The Renault 4CV (french: quatre chevaux, as if spelled ''quat'chevaux'') is a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive, 4-door economy supermini manufactured and marketed by the French manufacturer Renault from August 1947 through July 1961. It was the ...
based coupé prototype, and modified by
Chappe et Gessalin
Chappe et Gessalin is the short-form of the name of French coachbuilder "Carrosserie Chappe Frères et Gessalin". The company built automobile bodies and did contract assembly for other automobile manufacturers. It was also the parent of Automobile ...
, the firm that would assemble the early “glass fibre” bodied A106s for Alpine.
Under the skin, the A106 closely resembled the
4CV. The more sporting “A106 Mille Miles” would derive from a competition version of the 4CV model developed by Renault.
The name
The number “106” also came from Renault. 1060, 1062 and 1063 were the reference numbers under which the 4CV had been registered with the French homologation authorities.
[1061 was the number of an automatic transmission version of the Renault 4CV intended for drivers whose war injuries left them unable to use a manual transmission: this project never progressed beyond the prototype stage, however.] The Alpine 107 was a steel-bodied prototype, which never entered production.
The launch
The emphasis at this stage was not on selling cars to the public but on chalking up successes in competition, indicating financial support from
Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...
for
Alpine
Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to:
Places Europe
* Alps, a European mountain range
** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range
Australia
* Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village
* Alpine National Pa ...
. Following on from the one-off “Marquis” and “Alemano” prototypes, in the summer of 1955 the first three Alpine A106s, painted respectively red, white and blue, were presented to Renault CEO
Pierre Dreyfus
Pierre Dreyfus (18 November 1907, Paris — 25 December 1994, Paris) was a high French civil servant who in 1955 became a wealthy businessman.
Between 1947 and 1955, he occupied senior administrative positions in the Ministry of Industry and Comm ...
in the yard at Renault's large (though by now rather cramped) Billaincourt plant. The cars had been assembled by
Chappe et Gessalin
Chappe et Gessalin is the short-form of the name of French coachbuilder "Carrosserie Chappe Frères et Gessalin". The company built automobile bodies and did contract assembly for other automobile manufacturers. It was also the parent of Automobile ...
, in order to meet a special order received from Charles Escoffier, the owner of a large Paris based Renault dealership who also happened to be the father in law of
Jean Rédélé
Jean Rédélé (17 May 1922, Dieppe, Seine-Maritime – 10 August 2007 Paris), was an automotive pioneer, pilot and founder of the French automotive brand Alpine.
With a HEC diploma, he was the youngest Renault dealer in France, with a dealershi ...
.
![1957 Alpine A106 Coach](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/1957_Alpine_A106_Coach_%22Mille_Miles%22.jpg)
From 1955 the little A106 started to accumulate a succession of victories, and various performance enhancing options were offered such as “''Mille Miles'' (
Mille Miglia
The Mille Miglia (, ''Thousand Miles'') was an open-road, motorsport endurance race established in 1927 by the young Counts Francesco Mazzotti and Aymo Maggi, which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 (thirteen before World ...
) suspension” following A106 participation in the eponymous race. The Mille Miles specifications involve using four shock absorbers at the back, and was the suspension system later used for the
Renault 8 Gordini
The Renault 8 (Renault R8 until 1964) and Renault 10 are two rear-engined, rear-wheel drive small family cars produced by the French manufacturer Renault in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The 8 was launched in 1962, and the 10, a more upmarket ver ...
. Also offered was a five-speed manual gear box manufactured under license: a five-speed gear box in a road car of this class was almost unheard of, and since the gearbox option alone came with a price tag sufficient to purchase 35% of a
Renault 4CV
The Renault 4CV (french: quatre chevaux, as if spelled ''quat'chevaux'') is a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive, 4-door economy supermini manufactured and marketed by the French manufacturer Renault from August 1947 through July 1961. It was the ...
,
[ Alpine A106s incorporating the five-speed gear box option remained rare. In 1956 Jean Claude Galtier and Maurice Michy achieved a podium place and class victory for the A106 in the ]Mille Miglia
The Mille Miglia (, ''Thousand Miles'') was an open-road, motorsport endurance race established in 1927 by the young Counts Francesco Mazzotti and Aymo Maggi, which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 (thirteen before World ...
race.
Commercialisation
Although the initial emphasis was on sporting success, in October 1957 the A106 made its first appearance at the Paris Motor Show
The Paris Motor Show (french: Mondial de l'Automobile) is a biennial auto show in Paris. Held during October, it is one of the most important auto shows, often with many new production automobile and concept car debuts. The show presently take ...
.[ In 1957 ]Chappe et Gessalin
Chappe et Gessalin is the short-form of the name of French coachbuilder "Carrosserie Chappe Frères et Gessalin". The company built automobile bodies and did contract assembly for other automobile manufacturers. It was also the parent of Automobile ...
relocated production facilities for the fibre-glass bodied cars from Saint-Maur to a new more spacious site (which a few years later became their headquarters) at Brie-Comte-Robert
Brie-Comte-Robert () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.
Brie-Comte-Robert is on the edge of the plain of Brie and was formerly the capital of the ''Brie française''.
"Brie" comes ...
. This prepared the way for increasing production levels.
The A106 still came with the same little 747 cc Renault engine, but now three different power output versions were offered, providing respectively at 4,100 rpm, at 4,800 rpm or, on the “A106 Mille Miles”, at 6,300 rpm. Performance differences correlated with different carburettors and higher compression ratios and, in the case of the fastest car, of weight reduction.[
The October 1957 Paris Motor Show also marked the first appearance of the Michelotti styled Alpine cabriolet.][ Subsequently, a closed coupé version of this car would also be produced ("coach" in French), and it would eventually become the ]Alpine A108
The Alpine A108 was a light-weight glass-fibre bodied, rear-engined two-door coupé produced for a young competition-oriented Dieppe based Renault dealer called Jean Rédélé. The car replaced the Alpine A106 and was based on mechanical components ...
. At this stage, however, the A106 continued to be the manufacturer's principal model, and by the time production ended around 650 had been produced.
A larger engined version of the car later appeared offering a maximum of power from a 904 cc version of the Dauphine engine. In 1959 a tubular-framed backbone chassis version was introduced.
In 1960 emphasis switched from the A106 to the A108, and at some point during the next couple of years the last A106 was produced. The A106 had established Alpine's credentials as an auto-brand, but it successor would be produced in significantly greater numbers and would become much better known than the A106 had managed.
References
*''Alpine. Tous les modèles. Toutes les années'', par Dominique Pascal. Massin éditeur.
*Ulrich Bethscheider-Kieser; Mike Riedner (Publisher.): Autos die Geschichte machten. Renault Alpine. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1991, , S. 156, DNB 911285024
External links
Histomobile, page dedicated to the A106 coupé
an
A106 cabriolet
Alpine A106 (in German)
{{Renault
Rear-engined vehicles
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
A106
Rally cars
Sports cars
Cars introduced in 1955
First car made by manufacturer