Quite right - but the question is a silly one, in the first place: no 'off-the-shelf' car can ever be the "ultimate" anything, unless you specify that you're ignoring all customized cars, in your question. Obviously, you can modify any candidate-car to improve its driving performance to suit your individual taste... I thought the "trivial" comment about the badly-designed arm-rest was actually quite telling - that sort of thing really hurts a car's utility as a real 'daily driver'!
Lovely video and two great cars you chose, but I disagree with some of the comments from Dan. The A110 is a fun car and most people can take it closer to its limit than the 570S but that doesn't make it more desirable, it just makes the power more useable. Not many people can get the most out of a Porsche 911 Turbo S as it has so much power and grip, yet it is highly desirable. I recently bought an Alfa 4C for the exact reason you talked about, however, I wouldn't want that as my only car. Having a supercar appeals on lots of different levels. It is nice to have more than one car in the garage is my conclusion.
What a video. Thank you Autocar for putting out quality content. McLaren is a stunning car but there's something so beguiling about that little Alpine....
Weight is the enemy! On the road a lightweight car with decent power will always be more fun than a heavy car with heaps of power. Power gets old, handling doesn’t.
Recipe for a a McLaren that would really impress me: A smaller €100k car with the same tub stiffness, even more road focus (particularly no aero nonsense except a working diffusor) with a 3L V6 400 hp version of their current engine at 1.100 kg. 25 years ago, they already produced a car with that kind of weight, it even had a V12, 3 seats and a top speed of 240 mph.
The GTC is WAY more than 3 times the cost of the Sandero... But neither you nor I have the ability to max out a 570, so just chill and accept that they have a point about the Alpine.
I totally agree with their commentary around the 12 minute mark about how enjoyable it is driving a car right at the edge of it's limits. Here in the US I'll never get a chance to drive an Alpine, but driving a well balanced Mazda MX-5 is way more fun than driving a super car which performance envelope is so far beyond anything possible on the road that if you pass a cop pushing the envelope you'll end up in jail. There used to be some really good roads that were completely empty past midnight, now there's at least some traffic at all times so forget the law, I don't want to kill somebody getting my adrenaline fix.
Conclusion! Alpine is a sports car which you will enjoy more on public roads, because it has less power but it is ultimately more rewarding, (on public roads)
I agree as well, i've build a competition car which was still road legal. But I didn't enjoy it on the street anymore because the limit of grip wasn't approachable with some sanity of mind. It became a specialist tool for laptimes, not for enjoyment. Smaller and less grippy compound tyres allow for bigger slip angles and more often approachable limit and thus a drivers car.
Alpine A110 is such an interesting car and I know there's a point to it's power etc but at over £50k.... it should really be at least 300hp. £50k... let's be honest it's a £40k car at most. Mind you saying that, the Alfa 4c, which is prettier imo is way toooo expensive also. Gutted they never made a stradale or cloverleaf or Quadrifolglio version of that. Here's to hoping Alpine make an RS or something of the A110 and open up the potential on that chassis and set up. I just couldn't bring myself to pay £50k at the moment for one when you can get an M2 for less with a straight 6
My M2 costs exactly the same when new as the full option Alpine A110 Legende my girlfriend ordered.... The A110 is not cheap, but in my opinion it is worth the money (way more then the even more expensive equally specced 718 cayman/boxster).
Not sure how you claim these put driving enjoyment first with both of the cars are automatics only. Give them a manual transmission option and then we can talk about them putting enjoyment over stats
I’ve had the opportunity to drive on of those Alpines and they are an absolutely amazing machine. I own a BMW M3 CS and I would swap it tomorrow if I didn’t have a family
No contest, Alpine looks much better. The blue is bluer, and it looks like it can get over a speed hump. It'll be more reliable too, as France is closer to Japan than Britain, and the French can design things to work at temperatures slightly move than 20 degrees Celsius.
thanks for your video and work, effectively A110 it's fun to drive and pleasure to use it every day, it's geeting more important those days in front of track performance. In a way that Alpine is a sort of drug, you want to drive it all day and night long.
We want a decently priced daily driver lightweight happy use sports car and NOT one of those over priced garage queens….no prizes for guessing which is which…
Really enjoyed that. Prosser is a cracking young journalist who I'm sure we will are only going to see more and more of going forward. Also worth noting he has put his money where is mouth is and bought his own A110. Mush be a cracking little car.
Car journalists are the most guilty for that "movement" in the car industry that made the objective car performance seem like the priority. Stuff like 0-60, quarter miles, lap times, etc. All things that are TOTALLY irrelevant when you sit behind the wheel and literally play no role at all in your decision of how much you like a certain car or how good a certain car is, yet, the reviews are set up in such a way that it makes people believe a 0.4 seconds of a difference across a single lap between two cars is what makes one better than the other, which is utter horseshit. I've always said that cars are much more about the subjective qualities than the objective ones, and the subjective qualities are MUCH, MUCH more difficult to nail. Everyone can make a car that's quick in straight line or even on a track. Hell, a bunch of amateurs tune their cars in the garage with off the shelf parts and make them quicker than some stock sports cars, but that's not the point. Making a car that is subjectively great as well is totally different task. It goes way beyond using a stopwatch. Unfortunately, most people don't understand that, and even more unfortunately, many car manufacturers don't, so they often make cars in such a way that they put objective qualities above subjective ones, just so that they could have bragging rights and use them in their marketing campaigns and payed reviews. That is ridiculous to me, and it makes it seem as if it really is how people judge cars. There's a massive difference between how the vast majority of car reviewers judge cars and how the actual people who buy those cars judge them. It's as if you drove a car for 10 hours straights, really liked it, and then someone brought out a stopwatch, and then that stopwatch would make you decide whether what you felt for the past 10 hours was real or not. OF COURSE it was real. Yet, some people want you make you think otherwise and even make cars win comparison tests based on nothing but a tiny, insignificant difference in measured performance. Unfortunately many manufacturers are using that and getting away with building really shitty cars, that is especially true about American brands. All those Hellcats, Demons and other ridiculous cars are perfect examples of cars that appear amazing on paper but really are nothing but really bad cars with a lot of power and very grippy, overly wide tires.
derbigpr500 a CorvetteZo6 ZL1 or any Camaro 1le a Ford GT would show their backsides to a lot of your Euro cars around a track all day long. As for the Hellcats and Demons? They are drag monsters out of the box. You know drag? The particularly American style of racing. So maybe that’s what they were going for when they manufactured those two. Just sayin.
I drove the new 718 Cayman S (without an LSD) and I have to say, other than seeing the Porsche badge I was disappointed. After all the raving on about them, it sounds rubbish, it really does, especially inside where it sounds like an ald van. The drive didn't seem all that engaging. Yes it was quick but I don't know it felt like it was missing something. Jumped back into the M2, it sounded way better, felt just as quick and immediately feels way more playful just driving home from work. So I understand exactly where you're coming from. Noise and feel/fun is what makes a sports car, not outright pace.
Agreed. I have an ALFA 4C and am familiar with Lotus Elise and Exige. Sadly those Lotus aren't sold in US anymore nor is the 110 going to be sold here. But even if they were I would stay with the 4C. For those that have never driven one of the cars I mentioned.....you don't know what you are missing. None can be the replacement for the family SUV but that is not what they were designed for. Take them on a nice road trip or a track day or autocross....you will see what it means to drive a real drivers car.
@derbigpr500 - objective measures have their place, in showing us how fast a car potentially can be. But in general I agree. Cars like the A110 and 4C sacrifice true driving connection for an automatic that saves ~2/10ths of a second on the 60 sprint and less than half a second a lap, hilariously on cars that don't have all that impressive performance stats anyway, compared to say a manual Cayman or Corvette. I'm going to disagree with the last line. While the Hellcats are bloated stright line monsters, the Camaro (all 1LE trims), and GT350R are both extremely well balanced and amazing drivers cars, while also putting down excellent lap times.
Don't quite get the comment around 5:00 "it's bringing down the accessibility of its performance" and naming it in the same sentence as the i30 N, MX-5 and GT86. I mean it is a great car but it's also more expensive than 718, so it's not exactly more accessible than that and as accessible as the other cars named.
This video underscores why, for me, “slow car fast” is always preferable over “fast car slow.” If you can’t use the cars abilities, what good are they? They just become irrelevant numbers.
TTRS has been tested already and it lost badly. It's not a great car at all... I tested one on both road and I was, well, unimpressed in every way. It's dull as dishwater. It's WAY to "safe". The gearbox is extremely annoying as it changes for you, even in manual mode. I got out of it, very frustrated... the new Porsche Cayman S, on the other hand, was epic. !
Nick Chatburn I agree, I’m not really a fan of the TT RS but I think it needs to be included along with an M2 (dct) and it would be cool to see. The dream for me would be if VW Group put the 5 banger from the TT RS into the Cayman 😍.
Yea - the Alpine & standard Cayman as that's the only one that sits anywhere near £50k, standard M2, TTRS or S, Alfa 4c, A45 AMG, Golf R, Civic Type R & maybe the 4 pot F Type. Good mix of hot hatch 4wd Fwd and Rwd. Porsche & Audi would probably take the interior. I think the M2 would beat a standard Cayman around the track. I reckon the 4 pot F Type would be last around a lap. Not sure about the rest.
When Porsche cut the Cayman's legs by making it a 4 cylinder they opened the market they had on lock forever. I wish they kept it, but you know, it cannot surpass the 911 blablablah
Having a McLaren 650S and an Alpine A110 I know exactly what you mean. Well, the 650 is more Supercar than the 570 and not so easy to drive. But it has Performance from another planet (like the 570S), not being able to push it to the limits legally on roads. The Alpine lets you do this exactly! You can play around at its limits, it has a great sound for a 4 cylinder engine and daily drivers comfort. I use both daily and I dont want to miss them, both!!! By the way, you gave the answer to the question: both cars win- one (McLaren) is more expensive but gives you more performance in the sin of speed. The Alpine offers more comfort instead. On the track the Alpine breaks come to a limit after a day, whereas the Mclaren ceramics get warmed up! On the other side, Alpine brakepads will cost a fraction of McLaren‘s... it all depends from the part of the viewer..
It does, but it's mainly sold in china and is exactly the same as the 570s only with 30 less hp, so there's barely any difference so nobody think it's worth reviewing
@@slopestyleer5160 If it's a cheaper 570s only with 30 less hp, why is no one buying them over here? What the heck do you need those extra 30hp more for?
I think Dan Prosser is onto something with his (apologetic) complaint about the passenger armrest - reviews might do well to consider the poor, under-represented passenger, even for sports cars. For every single owner with no friends, there are many couple owners, for whom long drives, swapping drivers along the way, are part of the fun of ownership. But not if the passenger seat is a rolling penalty box, with, for example, no foot room, weird sharp corners, and most common of all, more limited seat adjustment for the passenger than the driver. Bring on the passenger reviews...!
Maybe I’ll have to drive one because I don’t get the hype for auto, fat steering wheel and not that lightweight. A Honda S2000 better gearbox, better engine etc new was half the price of alpine (even adjusted for inflation, they were 20k pre-reg parallel import at one point.)
The A110 you could use most of the performance safely while the 570S you just wouldn’t get anywhere near using all it’s performance on the Road, so you could argue that you’d be better off with the A110.....
Maybe be no, the alpine is too fast to get near it’s limits on the public road so you need to find enjoyment elsewhere, in the outside shots you were mostly going slow and were you enjoying that? And as for the McLaren, don’t be silly, you used full power for max of 3 seconds and that took you well over the speed limit, it might be the most approachable McLaren but that’s not what you asked.
To be honest its nearly impossible to rag any car to its limit on public roads certainly not a 570bhp McLaren that'd annihilate the mid level supercars of just a few years prior- Gallardo, 458. Not even with the Alpine can u take that to its limit and if u think u can your either naive or now dead in a ditch. I have a 2002 1.25L fiesta and taking that to its limit would mean breaking many driving laws bar on motorways so the best drivers car is a Peugeot 205 gti or Clio Williams end of.
Sad eh. I’m not a massive Porsche fan but they seem to be recognising value of a manual transmission in proper drivers car like Cayman GT4 and 991 GT3 Touring. I’d take a Cayman GT4 over either of these in a heartbeat
@@lastword4316 Same here, and for the same reason. Though I'm determined to reward Aston with an order when they stick a manual into their new Vantage.
As long as there are 981 Cayman S avalible as good used ones, there will never be a reason to buy something like the Alpine! Thats just my opinion though...
True! But a 981 Cayman S is more expensive to run, insure and roadtax. The big benefit of the Alpine A110 is that it is so tax friendly (especially if you buy it as a company car in our country). Even the “boring” 718 Cayman 2.0 is less tax friendly then the A110. My girlfriend ordered the A110 as her new company car and the deductable tax benefits are realy big when she compared it with buying a used 981 Cayman S. Ofcourse this is because of the smaller Alpine engine and the lower Co2. Besides the financial benefits she loved how the A110 drives, how it looks and most of all it’s not yet another Porsche Cayman/Boxster that you see parked on every corner and driven by every succesfull women who wants a compact sports car.
@@Franzino Exactly the other way around my friend. I have a 981 GTS and its the most affordable sports car ever. Insurance is about 40% of what a Golf GTI would cost, and it still has the same value as on the day I bought it ;)
The one without all the nanny devices and a manual gearbox? Oh wait... And before the flaming starts, the question was "Driver's car...". Not fast car, fun car, track car, sports car or performance car.
Yeah to the average car enthusiast 0-100mph in 10 secs flat is bloody quick which they didnt put across on this video! This thing will leave the hot hatches in a straight line with ease as long as you or your passenger arnt too heavy!!....
Back end of the alpine looks really "meh". 570s is the best sports car out there at the moment. And despite having a TTv8 it has a very clean spirited sound.
@@sexyitalian891 i meant best looking. I was talking about the back end of the alpine the previous sentence but i should have made it more clear sorry.
