Alpine-Renault A-310

Why is it that when a product stands out from the crowd, it usually ends up with hardly any buyers, a company in severe debt and a tarnished reputation when something goes wrong. Think of the Concorde- the world's first and probably last supersonic airliner. It had hardly any passengers (despite being able to cross the Atlantic in three hours) hardly any airlines bought it and when ONE, yes only one crashed, the whole project was slowly dissolved into the pages of history.
Not only was Concorde fast and ground-breaking, it was different. It looked beautiful when standing on the tarmac next to boring, fat old 747s. It was more of a living thing, according to pilots, than an Airbus: which is more like a tool with no soul. And yet, it still died a horrible death: It ended up in a museum when it was more technologically advanced than the planes that took the museum goers to see it, standing on the museum floor with its engines never to breathe another molecule of air again.

Another product that was ground breaking was the Citroen SM. Not only did it look extremely stylish and aerodynamic, it was fast and it had the best suspension system ever invented: Hydro-pneumatic. A hugely costly system (which is why few cars these days use it) it enabled a comfortable ride at low speeds, but a firm and rewarding feel with minimal body-roll through corners at higher speeds.
It also had a 2.7 litre Maserati V6 engine, sending power to the front wheels. This last fact, coupled with the strange interior with unfathomable dashboard dials, and a high price when new, meant that the SM found few buyers.
This also makes me sad. Why, when Citroen went to all that effort to be different, was no one interested? This clearly indicates a level of ignorance among most car buyers: everyone chooses price first. This is obviously a huge part of buying a car, but it should be second or third on the priority list. When most people look for cars on eBay or Trade Me, they set a price bracket then check what type of car it is. I browse cars the other way round.

So what about the whole point of this post? The Alpine Renault A310. This was a weird car. No doubt about that first fact. It was based on a race-winning, rear-engined car called the Alpine A-110. This was a car built by  French company, Alpine (being French it was pronounced "Alpeene")
This car was built in the early '60s, and die out in the early 70s, but in the late 70s, the brand was bought by Renault, and they resurrected the brand and began churning out new versions of the original A-110. Called the A-310, it was absolutely brilliant. It was still as rear engined as the original, and Renault had focused it more toward the GT, luxury supercar end of the car spectrum, as opposed to the bare-no holds racer on which it was based.

So why do I like the A-310 so much? It was hugely different to all the other supercars being designed at the time, which were all mid-engined wedge shaped boxes, (step forward Lamborghini Countach and every Lotus built in the 70s) It was also deceiving. It had huge flared wheel arches and a very smooth aerodynamic profile (which earned it the title of having the lowest drag co-efficient of only 0.26) this meant that passers-by saw you driving along and believed you were in some exotic Italian supercar, costing far more than what you paid. The rear engine gave the Alpine unique handling. Massive amounts of fun oversteer thanks to the rear engine, rear drive layout but tamable and rather safe thanks to the excellent suspension and chassis setup.

Sadly, like the Citroen SM, it was a revolutionary car that no one was interested in, despite the valuable racing pedigree. It had a weird name that no one (except the French, who bought most of them) wanted to pronounce. It was also expensive for what it was ( the engine was the same 2.7 litre V6 once used in the Renault Espace people-carrier) and this engine didn't produce much power. The positioning of this engine also meant practicality was sort of non existent. In the 80s, a new Alpine A-610 was born, this time with a turbocharged 3 litre V6 and a new, perhaps even better looking body shape. This also found few buyers.

Like Concorde and the Citroen SM, the Alpine-Renault A-310 was a shot at being different that was instantly shot down by the masses. It was a shot at the weird and wonderful that many didn't care about.
This makes it rare, exclusive, and above all- different.