Alpine A110 R Ultime Unveiled As a Track-Focused Swansong

The Alpine A110 R Ultime is meant to be the nameplate’s most potent form, but it still can’t beat the GT4 RS’ Nurburgring lap time.

It is no secret that Alpine is retiring the current A110 sportscar soon, and the French performance marque decided to give it a banging send-off by unveiling the most potent version of the nameplate. Christened as the Alpine A110 R Ultime, this souped-up, track-focused sportscar is meant to give Porsche 718 GT4 RS’ owners something to worry about, but does it really live up to the hype?

To put this theory to the test, Alpine engineers recently brought the A110 R Ultime to the infamous Nurburgring track to set its official lap time. After several rounds, Alpine’s most potent two-seater has set a pretty impressive lap time record of 7 minutes and 15 seconds, thus putting it a healthy 20 seconds faster than the standard A110 R.

With that being said, the A110 R Ultime is still six seconds behind the fastest lap time set by the GT4 RS, which clocked in at 7 minutes and 9 seconds, and then 7 minutes and 3 seconds with the optional Manthey Kit installed.

While the A110 R Ultime won’t have the bragging rights over the GT4 RS, this souped-up sportscar is still an impressive machine by itself. For starters, the swansong model gets a power upgrade over its standard twin, where its 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbocharged engine has benefited from a bigger turbo kit that boosts its total system output to 340 HP and 420 NM. Still, said power is a lot less punchy than the GT4 RS’ 493 HP total system output, thus making the Alpine’s Nordschelife lap time seem to be more impressive.

On top of beefier output, the turbocharged lump is also mated to a revised six-speed automatic gearbox that grants the A110 R Ultime a rapid century sprint time of only 3.8 seconds, which is just 0.4 seconds shy from the GT4 RS.

Power outputs aside, Alpine has managed to stick with their lightweight sportscar recipe, even in this potent Ultime form. The swansong model has benefited from lots of carbon fibre parts, including the entire aero kit and multiple body parts. Although the automaker didn’t specify the final kerb weight of the A110 R Ultime, we’d reckon that it’d be lighter than the A110 R, which already tipped the scale at an impressive 1,100 KG.

Helping the A110 R Ultime extract the most out of its four-pot lump are several mechanical gizmos and upgrades, such as the Ohlins TTX dampers, the sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres it rolls on, and a massive rear wing that generates up to 160 KG of downforce. Stopping power, on the other hand, is provided by a set of AP racing brakes.

Befittingly, only 110 examples of the A110 R Ultime will be made by Alpine, with each of them handsomely tagged at €265,000 (RM1.226 million), or €330,000 (RM1.526 million) if you fancy the special graduate blue paint job. Given its limited production numbers, we won’t be surprised if this special swansong is tagged with a higher price once it is set for auction in the near future.