page_title: Automobiles Alpine
section_title: Early days
hierarchical_section_title: Automobiles Alpine / History / Early days
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Alpine A106 Italiano: Alpine A 106 Mille Miglia del 1959
context_page_description: The Société des Automobiles Alpine SAS, commonly known as Alpine, is a French manufacturer of racing and sports cars established in 1955. The Alpine car marque was created in 1954. Jean Rédélé, the founder of Alpine, was originally a Dieppe garage proprietor who began to achieve success in motorsport with one of the few French cars that were produced just after the Second World War, the Renault 4CV. The company has been closely related to Renault through its history, and was bought by it in 1973. Production of Alpine models ceased in 1995.
  The Alpine marque was relaunched with the 2017 introduction of the new Alpine A110.
context_section_description: Using Renault 4CVs, Rédélé 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 five-speed gearboxes replacing the original three-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 created the Alpine marque in 1954. It 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 issue was to cause problems for Alpine throughout its history.
  In 1955, he worked with the Chappe brothers to be amongst the pioneers of auto glassfibre construction and produced a small coupe, based on 4CV mechanicals, 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 all Alpines.
  Alpine then took the Michelotti cabriolet design and developed a 2+2 closed coupe (or 'berlinette') body for it: this became the Alpine A108, now featuring the Dauphine Gordini 845 cc engine, which on later models was bored out to give a capacity of 904 cc or (subsequently) 998 cc.  The A108 was built between 1958 and 1963.
caption: Coach Alpine A106 Mille Milles 1955 (First alpine)
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