Alpine A710

The Alpine A710 was a planned successor to the Renault Alpine GTA and A610, developed from 1989 under the codename W71 and never put on sale. Renault gave the work to Berex, the Dieppe design and engineering offshoot of Alpine, and the plan was a light two-seater of around 900 kilograms built around a 2-litre engine from the Renault Clio Williams, a lightweight aluminium chassis and a modern cab-forward body. Engineers who drove the early prototypes found it lively. The engineers had left out air conditioning, electric windows and power steering, and Renault marketing asked for comforts that would have made the car larger and heavier, so the project suffered mission creep. It was axed in 1992 or 1993, according to Jalopnik, which reports a single working prototype. The aluminium chassis and engine were reused in the Renault Sport Spider of 1996, built in the Dieppe factory without an Alpine badge.