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THE ALPINE A290_ß IS A RETRO-STYLED EV THAT NEEDS MASS PRODUCTION - NOW!

We’ve been motoring fans for more years than we care to remember, which means we can remember back when cars were more function over from in design than fancy lines and bulbous headlights and crumple zones weren’t included because things were way less serious. In the 70s and 80s car design was great, we had the original Mk1 Golf start up a long line of great cars, and the same happened for French automaker Renault. In 1972 the the Renault 5 was launched and by the time 1980 came around it was a top seller in Europe and around the world. That brings us to Alpine, the company was founded in 1955 by Jean Rédélé, a man with a passion for motorsport whose favorite playground was the Alps, which inspired the brand’s name. The company gained popularity in 1962 when the original A110 was launched. The connection with Renault comes in because Alpine cars were sold and serviced through Renalt dealerships. The latest creation from the automaker is a retro-styled throwback to that original Renault 5, and it looks absolutely amazing. Well, it does to us, and we’re not sure if that’s because we have influence from seeing the Renault 5 trundling around neighbourhood streets or if it really is that cool, someone slightly younger may have to tell us. The best of the Renault 5s was the rear-engined Renault 5 Turbo and there’s a bunch of those old 80s design cues wrapped up into this new creation that’s been called the Alpine A290_β.

The Alpine A290_β combines everything cool about motoring, the current EV technology with familiar dimensions and lines and that can only mean it will be a popular car. Taking cues from the brand’s F1 technology, this hatchback has a three-seater layout with the driver sitting in the centre flanked by the passengers to the rear sides. Carbon fibre hints at the long line of motorsport experience, and it makes that two-tone exterior pop even more. The EV hatchback features an amazing-looking and no doubt functional double spoiler, this should help the car stay planted through the twisties when hooning it through the Alps. The car will feature torque vectoring to further enhance the enthralling performance the car will offer up when playing on the track. Details are at a minimum at the moment, nothing has really been released yet besides these amazing visuals, but we do know it will be a fully electric car that will be quite quick with a healthy power output. These days smaller EVs make silly power and can rival proper petrol-engined hot hatches in the 1-100km/h and 0-160 km/h runs, so one that’s actually made with performance in mind should see the world’s petrol-powered hot hatches looking more lukewarm in comparison. We’ll keep you posted on this car and its progress from concept through to production - and it really, really needs to be produced.

Take a look at the YouTube video that shows us exactly what a hot hatch of the future needs to be - an amazing-looking car that's packed with future technologies that are used in the best ways possible resulting in a car that will no doubt become as much of a worldwide hit as the old school Renault 5 Turbo that the car was inspired by. This is the EV we want, although it's highly likely it will also be the EV we can't afford. It's worth dreaming over though: The Alpine A290_β | Alpine

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