Three, it happened a couple of years ago. It was when Renault first unveiled its Renault 5 concept. Now it was pretty much universally loved by everyone that set eyes on it. How could you not love it? It was cute, retro fun. It was all the things that I really adore about driving electric, but there was one thing that stopped him from being the ultimate dream car, and that was the performance. What I have found this solution, the Alpine 8290 beta. How epic is that cannot wait to show you around Ive come all the way to Paris to give you the first glance, but before I do, could you do me a favor subscribe to our Channel Ive come to Paris if you just have to click that button. Its kind of equal yeah in case youre, not aware Alpine, is renaults sporting sub brand. You might know the name from formula one and you might be familiar with the rather lovely A110 Road car. The good news for us is that the Alpine brand is going fully electric. Two years ago, bosses told us that they were developing a 100 electric dream garage, a hot hatch, SUV and a coupe were all part of the big plan they said so this is part one of the grand plan, the Alpine 290 Visa, now yeah, okay. This is a show car um, its essentially a sportier reworking of that Renault 5 concept that we saw back in 2021 um.

The good thing is that 85 of this Mega exterior is going to remain true for the road car and the interior, which well the interior, really does take it to a whole new level, and actually there is limited amount that is going to transfer to the road Car, but in a moment you will see why but lets look in this exterior first now you dont need me to tell you that this is a really mad. Looking thing, there are loads of elements that have been inspired by Alpines racing and rallying heritage. These xs on the headlights hark back to the days when Alpine mechanics would tape across the lenses to prevent broken glass landing on the track. These lovely vertical rear lighting strips are borrowed from the Alpine a470 endurance racing car and, if youd forgotten, who was driving Alpines Formula One cars, this season. Well, the concept car has a little reminder for you, and can we just have a moment to admire these wheels if they dont make production Im going to be very disappointed under this rather unique Bodywork is a set of underpinnings known as the cmf Bev platform. Basically, the foundations will sit underneath the reborn Renault 5., a new Renault 4 and the all electric Nissan Micra to help Renault and Alpine make the a290 as asffordable as possible. About 70 of the new platform is shared with the Brands combustion engine. Cars such as the Clio and Nissan Juke, by sharing large parts of the structure with high volume cars Renault reckons that production costs are reduced by up to 30 percent over the Zoe very clever thinking.

Now, Alpine is being pretty Coy about what size battery Powers the a290 concept, but were expecting the production version to come with a 52 kilowatt hour pack and a load of clever Tech that should make it lighter and sportier to drive than other cars in its category. The pack is divided into four modules that have greater energy density than the existing designs. That makes it around 15 kilos lighter than the pack fitted to the Zoe. This concept is a one off built for track, use only and comes with not one but two electric motors under the Bonnet, so dont get too excited because the production version is going to only have one. With an expected output of around 215 horsepower. Itll drive the front wheels as it does in them again. So if youre looking for a spiritual successor to the mid engined Renault 5, turbo, then Im afraid youre going to be disappointed. Still I reckon 215 horsepower thats going to be plenty enough for both where to start. I have no words. This is Mega. When they said come down, were launching a car, itll be fun. I was not expecting. I would be sitting in basically the cockpit of some crazy race. Car um is absolutely Mega, so weve got a proper roll cage up here. This is a certified, an FIA certified car, so it could technically be driven on a race track in a race um. Clearly, not much of this is going to transfer to the road car.

However, lets take a look around at how many nods to the racetrack. There are um weve got this little button here, OV the overtake button. That is the one bit of kit that we will see on the road car, so Im excited about that one youll get a little extra burst of energy Ive been told. I cant touch the steering wheel so Im not going to touch the steering wheel as tempting as it is, but check up here at the top of the cockpit youve got different buttons for each of the um things like indicator: rain lights, warning lights, headlights, DLR, stop Theres even number nine wheres number nine uh, oh thats number, nine. That would make sense. That is your very own extinguisher. Hopefully we wont need to use that um. Look at it just this Center. Cockpit is amazing. Youve got space for two mates, either side. The way that its all been designed, like the lighting and this of the sweeping edges, curve right in to again really make this Center driving position more pronounced its just Bonkers, and I want to drive. It were also expecting the Alpine to be a great car to drive no official figure on weight yet, but we do know there are a couple of features that should make it a really fun package. The first is a wider track. The distance between the front wheels in order to fit the larger motor Alpine has had to push the wheels a little further out.

A wider track means the car rolls Less in corners and feels more connected to the roads and at the back Alpine and Renault have installed a multi link. Suspension system usually super minis and City cars, get a really basic beam axle which are much cheaper to make. These are fine. Millions of cars have them, but they dont really deliver a particularly perky Driving Experience. So, as you can probably gather, I have High Hopes. This is going to be a belter when we get to drive it later in the year, so there we have it the all new Alpine a290 beta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwQcY5g2exA