  alpine () was a french manufacturer of racing and sports cars that used rear-mounted renault engines. jean rÃ©dÃ©lÃ©, the founder of alpine, was originally a dieppe garage proprietor, who began to achieve considerable competition success in one of the few french cars produced just after the second world war. the company was bought in 1973 by renault. == history == === early days ===  using renault 4cvs, rÃ©dÃ©lÃ© gained class wins in a number of major events, including the mille miglia and coupe des alpes. as his experience with the little 4cv built up, he incorporated many modifications, including for example, special 5-speed gear boxes replacing the original 3-speed unit. 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. encouraged by the development of these cars and consequent customer demand, he founded the sociÃ©tÃ© anonyme des automobiles alpine in 1954. the firm was named alpine after his coupe des alpes successes. 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 problem was to cause problems for alpine throughout its history.  in 1955, he worked with the chappe brothers to be amongst the pioneers of auto glass fibre construction and produced a small coupe, based on 4cv mechanicals and called the alpine a106. it used the platform chassis of the original renault 4cv. the a106 achieved a number of successes through the 1950s and was joined by a low and stylish cabriolet. styling for this car was contracted to the italian designer giovanni michelotti. under the glassfibre body was a very stiff chassis based on a central tubular backbone which was to be the hallmark of al
24_Hours_of_Le_Mans_entrants Defunct_motor_vehicle_manufacturers_of_France French_Formula_3_teams French_racecar_constructors Rear-engined_vehicles Renault Sports_car_manufacturers