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The alpine a220 is a prototype that participated in races in 1968 and 1969. The three vialle cars also competed in the french round at lohéac. Although reference is made to a hundred or so heads produced for homologation, it is certain that very few complete engines were assembled, perhaps 20 at most. This engine would provide the basis for the turbo renault f1, and sports racing engines. His first model was the a106 launched in 1955, this was followed by the a108, the first to use a backbone chassis, and forerunner of the most famous of redele's cars the a110 berlinette”.

But in reality, smith is faced with the convergence of three car manufacturers and one hungry-for-publicity oil company, and the story, which involves sports car racing, rallying, formula 3 and sports prototypes, begins in the early 1950s. 1 he did not realise that in england the previous year, sunbeam had introduced a sports coupe derived from the sunbeam talbot and called the " sunbeam alpine ". This naming issue was to cause problems for alpine throughout its history.

Launched in 1961 here a110, like previous road-going alpines, used many renault parts, including engines. By this time the competition cars were fitted with 1440 cc engines derived from the renault r8 gordini competition successes became numerous, helped since alpine were the first company fully to exploit the competition parts homologation rules.

The fact that the 4cv, renault dauphine and the renault 8 all used rear mounted engines was the key to jean redele's designs. To provide a lighter car he built a number of special versions with lightweight aluminium bodies: he drove in these at le mans and sebring with some success in the early 1950s. After a detailed history and description of the development of the v6 turbo and chassis, smith tracks f1 race results from the renault perspective from 1977-1979 and follows up through 1985 with plenty of technical insights between the chapters on the races.

The next aim was to win at le mans renault had also taken over the gordini tuning firm and merged the two to form renault sport a number of increasingly successful sports racing cars appeared, culminating in the 1978 le mans win with the renault alpine a442 b. This was fitted with a turbo-charged engine; alpine had been the first company to run in and win an international rally with a turbo car as far back as 1972 when thérier took a specially modified a110 to victory on the critérium des cévennes.