Alpine-Renault World Rally Champions

Two significant anniversaries come along during 2013 for Alpine Renault. Who, you may ask? Well, if you are relatively new to the world of classic and historic cars it’s a reasonable question, and for those who remember it will bring back memories of a bygone age of long, hard rallies, often three days and nights at a time, nonstop except for fuel and personal needs. We are talking late 1960s, early 1970s, and on top of the pile at that time was a little blue car from France, nicknamed in the UK the “Plastic Peril.” Alpine (pronounced Alpeen) was the product of one of the great motoring visionaries to emerge just after the World War II, Jean Rédélé (1922–2007).

Rédélé first created his company, Alpine, in 1955 following a respectable career as a rally and race driver in the Renault 1063 4CV. He started to build cars on a central tube chassis with mechanical parts at each end, featuring the engine and transaxle in the back; it was called the berlinette. The first A110 berlinette to take a victory was driven by Jacques Cheinisse, with Claude Leblond as co-driver, in the Rally Autumn 1963, 50 years ago. That is Anniversary Number One. Eventually, over the years and as the cars were developed, there would be more than 200 international victories, and in 1971 Alpine Renault, as they were called by then, won the International Rally Championship for manufacturers. Then in 1973 came victory in the first FIA WRC (World Rally Championship), 40 years ago. So how did they do it?