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Written by Ollie Kew
David Twohig, chief engineer on the new Alpine A110, admits working on a new sports car with no lineage a car that"s become his baby is the motoring job from heaven."I have to give you the stereotype answer: yes, this is the dream, for any engineer or anyone who likes cars", he beams from the passenger seat of an A110 at the Geneva motor show. "This is a once in a lifetime job."I immediately ask him to dispel some myths. Are there sneaky bits of Clio RS lurking under the Alpine"s skin?"No sir! We can dispel that. There has been lots of speculation and imagination, but almost nothing has been carried over from a Renault besides under-the-skin components like wiring. We have a bespoke extruded and bonded aluminium chassis. We have bespoke front and rear axles and suspension. The engine is all-new not a re-bored Clio engine. It is a new aluminum block 1.8-litre engine with around 250bhp and 236lb ft. It does not exist in any other Renault-Nissan alliance vehicle. I"m not saying it will never exist in any other carbut its first application is in the Alpine.""The gearbox is a new Getrag seven-speeder, not the gearbox from the Clio RS, which has a six-speed dry clutch, but this is a seven-speed wet clutch."So far so good, but the Clio RS has been criticised for sounding dull and having slurred gearshifts is that something the engineers have learned from for the Alpine? Twohig is adamant the Alpine will feel exciting when you give it the beans. "One of the big advantage of a wet clutch is getting faster changes. In Track mode, we have swift speeds in Porsche and Ferrari territory. I"ll admit it"s a little bit brutal for the passenger we"ll be getting some head-toss but hey, it"s Track mode. So in shift speed, I think you"ll be happy." "For exhaust noise, we put a lot of work into this. It"s a four-cylinder engine it"s not a V12. It has direct fuel injection, and it"s turbocharged. Modern engines like this just don"t make a beautiful sound like an old engine on Weber carburetors or whatever. So we"ve done thousands of hours of CFD modeling on the exhaust and added an active exhaust valve, so in Sport and Track mode the sound is active and I believe we have one of the best-sounding four-cylinders out there."From the drivers" seat, I click the (Clio-sourced) metal gearshift paddles a few times. This is a retro car; maybe people would have liked a retro transmission. Was a manual gearbox ever considered?"I would be lying if I said no", answers David. "It was considered early on in the project but we shelved it pretty quickly because okay, there"s a hardcore client out there who will always want a manual gearbox even though I can prove the dual-clutch is more efficient. But the percentage of those people is very, very small, and the business case is overwhelmingly for DCT transmissions. We"re very happy with the result and we think 95 per cent of our customers will be too."
Date written: 8 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 6988
David Twohig, chief engineer on the new Alpine A110, admits working on a new sports car with no lineage a car that"s become his baby is the motoring job from heaven."I have to give you the stereotype answer: yes, this is the dream, for any engineer or anyone who likes cars", he beams from the passenger seat of an A110 at the Geneva motor show. "This is a once in a lifetime job."I immediately ask him to dispel some myths. Are there sneaky bits of Clio RS lurking under the Alpine"s skin?"No sir! We can dispel that. There has been lots of speculation and imagination, but almost nothing has been carried over from a Renault besides under-the-skin components like wiring. We have a bespoke extruded and bonded aluminium chassis. We have bespoke front and rear axles and suspension. The engine is all-new not a re-bored Clio engine. It is a new aluminum block 1.8-litre engine with around 250bhp and 236lb ft. It does not exist in any other Renault-Nissan alliance vehicle. I"m not saying it will never exist in any other carbut its first application is in the Alpine.""The gearbox is a new Getrag seven-speeder, not the gearbox from the Clio RS, which has a six-speed dry clutch, but this is a seven-speed wet clutch."So far so good, but the Clio RS has been criticised for sounding dull and having slurred gearshifts is that something the engineers have learned from for the Alpine? Twohig is adamant the Alpine will feel exciting when you give it the beans. "One of the big advantage of a wet clutch is getting faster changes. In Track mode, we have swift speeds in Porsche and Ferrari territory. I"ll admit it"s a little bit brutal for the passenger we"ll be getting some head-toss but hey, it"s Track mode. So in shift speed, I think you"ll be happy." "For exhaust noise, we put a lot of work into this. It"s a four-cylinder engine it"s not a V12. It has direct fuel injection, and it"s turbocharged. Modern engines like this just don"t make a beautiful sound like an old engine on Weber carburetors or whatever. So we"ve done thousands of hours of CFD modeling on the exhaust and added an active exhaust valve, so in Sport and Track mode the sound is active and I believe we have one of the best-sounding four-cylinders out there."From the drivers" seat, I click the (Clio-sourced) metal gearshift paddles a few times. This is a retro car; maybe people would have liked a retro transmission. Was a manual gearbox ever considered?"I would be lying if I said no", answers David. "It was considered early on in the project but we shelved it pretty quickly because okay, there"s a hardcore client out there who will always want a manual gearbox even though I can prove the dual-clutch is more efficient. But the percentage of those people is very, very small, and the business case is overwhelmingly for DCT transmissions. We"re very happy with the result and we think 95 per cent of our customers will be too."
Date written: 8 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 6988
