There is no doubt that the Alpine A110 is a great driver’s car, but drifting does not seem to be one of its strong points.
Top Gear put The Stig in the driver’s seat of the French sports car, in perfect weather conditions, on the Longcross racetrack in England, where he recently abused the Mercedes-AMG E63 S Estate.
However, unlike the super executive station wagon, the A110 turned out to be quite difficult to drift, in spite of the perfect weight distribution, lightweight construction and decent amount of power for a car in this class. So, why did the tame racing driver fail to put on an exciting show behind the wheel of the A110?
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We will give you a moment to think of an answer to that question, while we revisit the specs of the car, which uses a turbocharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder mounted in the middle. Shared with the latest Renault Megane RS family, the engine produces 248 HP (252 PS / 185 kW) and 236 pound-feet (320 Nm) of torque and is mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and rear-wheel drive.
Alpine claims that the A110 can do the nought to 62 mph (0-100 km/h) sprint in just 4.5 seconds, and that it is capable of pushing all the way up to 155 mph (250 km/h). The more track-focused A110S has 288 HP (292 PS / 215 kW), is 0.1 seconds quicker to 62 mph and can max out at 162 mph (260 km/h).
Alas, while the small sports coupe seems set up to tackle corners pretty nicely, its grip (and, possibly, low power output) don’t make it ideal for drifting. Well, we guess the latter wasn’t high on the list of Alpine engineers’ priorities when they were developing the A110 anyway…