Alpine CEO’s plans for a lightweight supercar and a hypercar

Philippe Krief is as well known for his past life as Ferrari’s chief technology officer as he is for his current role as Alpine CEO. And his experience at, and admiration for, his previous employer is playing heavily into the direction in which he plans to take the French marque, particularly when it comes to its new ‘Special Projects’ arm. 

Krief discussed these ideas with evo at the launch of the new A390 electric SUV – ideas that include both a supercar and a hypercar, albeit distinctly Alpine-flavoured takes on those genres, that aren’t beholden to prevailing trends in these segments and that speak to what customers really want.

The first car to come from Alpine’s Special Projects branch actually already exists. We’ve even driven it, the car featuring in this year’s evo Car of the Year test. The A110 R Ultime is a car you’d ordinarily find difficult to justify: a limited variant of an already niche car, requiring comprehensive re-engineering, offered in low volumes and positioned at a loftier price point than you ever would have expected.

It’s quite unlike anything else on sale and unlike any A110 before it, and as such it sets the tone for what’s to come. Krief explains all, as well as how Special Projects fits among Alpine’s output as a whole:

‘It is important to understand that for the brand we have three main pillars. “Everyday Extraordinary” [encompasses] the A290 and now A390, which are more versatile and improve brand awareness with volume; you’ll see these cars more in the street. The “Icon” pillar, the heart of Alpine, is A110. We are working on the brand-new platform, Alpine Performance Platform [APP], on which all our sports cars will be based.

‘The third pillar, Special Projects, is the one that we created last year. A110 Ultime is the first of these Special Projects, where we push the boundaries of engineering, performance and driving thrills – being light and fun to drive  – but also personalisation, identity and exclusivity.’

Well-known for a while have been Krief’s ambitions for Alpine to have a halo hypercar – that would be the jewel in the crown of this Special Projects division. And the mould for it is of course there in the striking Alpenglow concept, which Alpine has wheeled out for dynamic demonstrations at events the world over.

‘For me it’s a dream not for the technical challenge, but because it would be a sign that we would be at the top. The technical challenge is not the most difficult one. If we wanted to, we could do a hypercar in six months. It’s that in this kind of car you have to put the overall product at the centre, to guarantee to the customer that they’ll have a unique experience with exclusivity. 

‘The full company needs to be ready to do that. For me it’s a dream because the day we could do this kind of car, sell it and make a profit off it, it would mean we’ve achieved our mission. There’s a lot of supercars and only one company is making a sustainable business of it. This is what I dream of.’

The challenge of pushing the technical envelope in the way such cars always do is significant, of course. But more difficult is creating an end product that’s of desire to those at whom it is aimed, and to offer the right kind of experience around it, of customisation and customer involvement. 

Krief also alluded to us that exactly how you approach such a car is important: that what the customer wants now is not necessarily the fastest, most technically advanced car, if it comes at the expense of tactility and the experience. At dinner he gave us a knowing nod and a smile when we suggested that hypercars of the moment are on a spectrum, with the sold-out manual, V12-engined GMA T.50 on one end and the likes of the electric, 2000bhp Lotus Evija on the other.

If the A110 Ultime is the beginning and a hypercar is the endgame, what comes in the middle, or perhaps afterwards? APP, the new aluminium platform, is designed to be versatile, Krief telling us that it has ‘the maximum possibilities for modularity’, capable of underpinning cars that are wider and longer than the A110. One of his past projects was the Ferrari 296 GTB, an 819bhp hybrid V6 supercar based on an aluminium core structure. We asked whether a rival for it could come from Alpine in the future, based on APP, to which he had a surprising response:

‘You know, we have the Ultime, we are targeting something at the top but also maybe we could have something between. We have tens of ideas a day about what we could do, but we need to find the right project. The good thing is, we have the platform from which we could derive a lot of things.

‘I don’t necessarily want to do an Alpine competitor to 296. I love that car, I worked on that car. It is for sure very impressive. But my dream is rather a modern Alpine interpretation of the Dino. A light, not-so-powerful car. Why? Because it’s exactly the DNA of Alpine, like the Ultime but positioned above the Ultime.

‘You need to respect your brand and focus on engineering excellence. Our brand is lightness and experience and performance. This is what we need to explore, and for that, this Special Projects pillar needs to show these values in their purest form.’