► Alpine CEO confirms plans for an SF90 rival
► F1-derived V6 engines, dual electric motors…
► … just not where you’d expect them to be
It seems Alpine has gone quite mad. The brand is charging into its electrification strategy with cars like the A290 hot hatchback, A390 SUV and the upcoming electric replacement for the A110 sports car – but the company’s CEO, Phillipe Krief, still thinks there’s room for a petrol-powered supercar at the top of the range.
And good grief, has he set his sights high. At the international launch of the A390 SUV, he told me his engineers are working on a 1000bhp Ferrari SF90 rival, powered by a V6 hybrid system that’s been developed by Hypertech Alpine. For the uninitiated, that’s a tuning firm formed from the remnants of Alpine’s Formula One engine programme.
Krief told us: ‘It won’t be a plug-in, but it will be a hybrid because we need more power, you know? On the rear it will be ICE, but it will be four-wheel drive and so we will have the axle on the front with two motors.’ Alpine also won’t take a leaf out of Ferrari’s book and outsource the development of its motors to Yasa. It’ll design its motors in-house.
That front twin-motor setup is similar to the Lamborghini Reveulto’s – and Alpine says the system will be able to provide a torque-vectoring effect to help drag the nose of the car into the apex of a corner. What’s more, Krief said the entire car will weigh less than 1,600kg. That’s positively anorexic by modern supercar standards.
The supercar will likely take some design, chassis and engineering inspiration from the Alpenglow prototype – the brand’s first foray into hydrogen combustion power. In 2024, the brand even presented a V6-engined version of the car (pictured) and, at the time of its reveal, Alpine hinted the powertrain ‘could be transposed to series production.’
I should also mention the supercar falls outside the bounds of Alpine’s planned range of seven new cars before the end of the decade. Because it’s such a small volume (and, frankly, rather special) project, Alpine didn’t want to tie it to its range of electric cars.
Once I’d learned Alpine currently only makes 11 cars every day at its Dieppe factory (Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg plant churns out thousands in the timeframe), I wasn’t at all surprised to learn this supercar will be built in very limited numbers. Because of that exclusivity, I suspect it’ll also be astronomically expensive.
Krief wouldn’t be drawn on a figure, but he reckons there’s plenty of space in the market for Alpine is he’s tactical. ‘If we fight with the performance,’ he said, ‘what is this price? It’s certainly not the same than the one for Ferrari. It’s certainly not the same than the one for Porsche. But there’s room.’
I reckon it’ll be positioned just far enough below the £450,000 Lamborghini Revuelto to make it look attractive without appearing cheap. I chucked a potential starting price of €200,000 at him, to which he said: ‘For the supercar? €200,000 for a supercar? It’s not enough. No, you know there’s a big correlation between the volume and the price. We need to make exclusivity, you know.
‘Everything is about profitability. We want profitability with two digits. Above ten percent. And so, it means low investment, higher price and then to be reasonable with the volume because all what we are doing is always taking the lower hypothesis or volumes because otherwise you overpromise, you don’t do and then you are in a mess.’
We’ll update you as the story develops, but the early signs suggest Maranello might finally have a reason to be afraid of Dieppe.
Luke is the Deputy Editor of our sister site Parkers, but he spends plenty of time writing news, reviews and features for CAR. He's been a motoring journalist since 2018, learning his craft on the Auto Express news desk before joining the Parkers/CAR team in 2022. When he isn't yoked to his laptop, he's tearing his hair out over his classic Mini restoration project or pinballing around the country attending heavy metal gigs.
By Luke Wilkinson
Deputy Editor of Parkers. Unhealthy obsession with classic Minis and old Alfas. Impenetrable Cumbrian accent
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