New Owners

[Miserablegit]

It's great to see the car becoming more popular but I'm intrigued as to why it has happened.

Have people been watching for a few years to check reliability was ok? I must admit, when I put my deposit down on a PE I was concerned that it might be a bit of a nightmare with being a new model etc. but, aside from my recent issue, it has been comparatively stress free.

Are people coming out of leases on other things?

I'm just interested as there seems to have been a flurry of activity over the past few months.

[kand300]

I have just placed a deposit on A110S ex demo which I’m picking up on Monday.

[Hoofty]

I wanted one from the moment they were announced, but wasn't in a position to pull the trigger until last year. I spent plenty of time worrying about whether a facelift would arrive just after ordering but elected to seize the day in the end (at the time of ordering there was much doom and gloom about whether they'd keep making them at all).

Lo and behold, 7 months after delivery, the facelift arrives. I'm not too annoyed though, it's done some excellent stuff already.

[biggles330d]

I had been curious since I saw one for the first time at Le Mans Classic in 2018 and not being a regular buyer of sports cars had spent plenty of time cogitating and looking in the window of Porsche dealers (I initially had my mind set on a Cayman) before I filled out an online test drive request on the Alpine website one sunday evening and lo and behold a while later the dealer got in touch and offered a test drive. I did that in Sept/October 2020, then more cogitating (I really didn't need another car and, for me anyway, it's a chunk of cash to spend on essentially a 3rd car/toy) before the O/H got fed up of me talking about it and said just buy one. "You're a long time dead". Fair enough. Management satisfied, so after hanging on a bit longer for the unannounced upgrade (by now it had been out 3 years, so logically due) of which there was no sign, order placed in March 21. A six month+ wait until delivery in October 2021 and inevitably, within weeks, the update announced. I'm not disappointed though as visually all is the same so its not obviously an 'older model' and I couldn't really give a stuff about apple CarPlay. None of my other cars has it so it's not something I miss.
But yea - nice to see demand creeping up and a few more about. My hope is that Alpine don't go chasing volume though and keep supply behind demand to maintain the exclusiveness and desirability. That's good for all of us.

[Car Mad Dave]

Hoofty said:

Lo and behold, 7 months after delivery, the facelift arrives. I'm not too annoyed though, it's done some excellent stuff already.

My car left the factory last week, one of the last “Pure’s” to be built I guess. As assembly was after the 26 Nov facelift announcement wouldn’t it be great if a kind tech at the factory started installing the upgraded infotainment units and my car got one

[roba110]

My new Alpine, 6 weeks in, and still gives me that Smile!!! Life110 re map next month I think! Any feedback on the remap appreciated?

Edited by roba110 on Thursday 30th December 18:09

Edited by roba110 on Thursday 30th December 18:09

[Miserablegit]

Glad you are enjoying it-
Can’t help on the specifics of the remap but,
IMHO, I’d leave it a bit.
The winter is not the best time to really explore what these cars do- if you remap it now I doubt you’d appreciate much difference- get a summer under the wheels and then I’m sure a remap would feel like a new car.

[Portti]

I placed an order for a new A110 yesterday so I'm not yet an owner but an owner-to-be.

My road to becoming an Alpine owner has been quite lengthy I guess. I have been following Alpine's rebirth with great interest since the beginning and when A110 was finally introduced I watched a lot of videos and read a lot of stories about it. A light, nimble sports car built/designed by partly the same people who had something to do with the excellent Renault Sport cars was very much to my liking. I had owned a 2012 Renault Megane RS 265 Trophy previously which I had liked very much and I had the confidence that Alpine A110 would also be a car that would be very much to my liking.

One thing was a little bit disappointing when the car was introduced - the price. I had hoped a little bit more reasonably priced car which would not be at the price level of Porsche Cayman etc. Well, what can you do. Better start saving money.

Now I finally have the funds to purchase one and it will be exciting to finally get behind the wheel of an A110. I'm from Finland and the nearest Alpine dealer is in Stockholm, Sweden. Before covid I was doing regular business trips to Stockholm and I was just planning to go to see A110 at the Stockholm dealer on my next business trip in spring 2020 but then covid hit and I haven't done any travels since then. This means that I haven't even seen an A110 in nature at all.

In the end I ended up not ordering the car from Sweden since they don't have euro currency (as we do in Finland) and due to currency rates it would've been few thousand euros more expensive to buy the car from there instead of some other euro country.

[Hoofty]

Portti said:

I placed an order for a new A110 yesterday so I'm not yet an owner but an owner-to-be.

Glad you’re joining us! IIRC, you were having to think carefully about your options because of WLTP, no? Sorry we couldn’t help you on that, but great news you’ve placed an order.

Portti said:

One thing was a little bit disappointing when the car was introduced - the price. I had hoped a little bit more reasonably priced car which would not be at the price level of Porsche Cayman etc. Well, what can you do. Better start saving money.

I’m sure we’d all like to have paid less, but it is no mean feat to create a new, ground-up sports car to such a standard. The Cayman benefits (or did) from lots of carryover 911 components (being childish, you could describe it as a parts-bin special! ), so if you look at it a certain way, it's better value than the Porsche...*

(*I'm being deliberately cheeky here - the Boxster/Cayman are fantastic cars, re-using parts from a 911 can just as easily be thought of as 'cheaping out' as 'picking the best', and they are widely viewed as 'higher quality' in a number of ways that matter to the majority of people. But there is a lot of nobility in making a car as well as the A110, from parts as nice as they are, for the price they were able to sell it at, particularly when they were essentially starting from nothing.)

[Portti]

Hoofty said:

...Glad you’re joining us! IIRC, you were having to think carefully about your options because of WLTP, no? Sorry we couldn’t help you on that, but great news you’ve placed an order.)

Thanks Hoofty!

Yes, you are correct, I had to think carefully on which options to take and one consideration was the impact of options to CO2 values since increased CO2 means increased taxes when I register the car in Finland. The increase from 152 g to 158 g CO2 WLTP (which is the the range of CO2 in the new A110) would mean approx. 2,000 EUR additional taxes. On the other hand it is a very good thing to me that the A110 CO2 values are now measured in accordance with WLTP and they are quite low. As far as I remember it used to be around 144 g/km NEDC. If it would still be that the taxes would be approx. 7,000 EUR higher thant with 152 g WLTP. Crazy system.

Now I hopefully have to pay less than 15,000 eur registration taxes for the car. Cheap as chips! On the cheapest 718 Cayman the taxes without options seem to be 28,000 EUR because of the higher CO2.

[Hoofty]

Portti said:

Now I hopefully have to pay less than 15,000 eur registration taxes for the car. Cheap as chips! On the cheapest 718 Cayman the taxes without options seem to be 28,000 EUR because of the higher CO2.

This is something that we (on a UK forum) tend to forget about when commenting on price points and comparing models. Although it's more expensive to register a 718 here (or even a fully optioned A110), the difference wouldn't stop you buying the car. As you've illustrated however, in other countries the difference can be prohibitively large - I think France is similar numbers to those for the Cayster.

I'm certain you'll love the car, and hopefully taxes aside, you'll enjoy its modest running costs too - a set of tyres costs less than half as much as for a 718!

Nick