Alpine will give the public its first look at the development mule for the next-generation A110 at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed, July 9-12. The car runs up the famous hill each of the four days. The next-gen A110 will be Alpine's first all-electric sports car, built on a new platform called Alpine Performance Platform (APP).
The debut is a statement about what Alpine thinks the future of driving-focused sports cars looks like. The interesting question is whether the A110's character — the thing that made the original A110 a benchmark for lightweight sports cars — survives the transition to electric.
What Alpine is showing
The Goodwood debut will feature several pieces:
- The next-gen A110 development mule — a prototype running on the new APP platform, making its first public appearance. Alpine is being explicit that this is a development car, not a production reveal.
- A290 electric hot hatch — Alpine's current best-selling model, in production, shown both on track and at the Alpine stand.
- A390 — Alpine's new 470 hp five-seat electric sport fastback.
- Heritage A110 models in the Brand Parade on Thursday, July 9.
- Alpine E20 Formula One car demonstration run.
- BWT Alpine F1 driver lineup — Pierre Gasly, Franco Colapinto, Nina Gademan, Paul Aron, Alex Dunne — on hand for demonstration runs and fan sessions.
- Alpine Active Torque Vectoring simulators for visitors.
It's Alpine's largest-ever Goodwood presence, which makes sense: Goodwood is the platform for the brand's biggest statement of intent in years.
What the original A110 actually is
The original Alpine A110 — produced from 1961 through 1977 — is the car that defined the modern concept of a lightweight, purpose-built sports car. Designed by Rédélé and built for rallying, the A110 won the inaugural World Rally Championship in 1973. Its specifications are unremarkable by modern standards (1.1L-1.6L engines, 600-700 kg curb weight), but its character — the way it used lightness to deliver handling performance that heavier cars with more power couldn't match — became the template.
The 2017 revival A110 (second generation, ICE-powered) was a deliberate return to the original's character. Alpine built it as light as possible: 1,098 kg curb weight, mid-engine layout, four-cylinder turbo, rear-wheel drive. In a market segment that had drifted toward heavier, more powerful sports cars, the second-gen A110 was a counter-argument: lightness beats power for driving enjoyment.
The second-gen A110 reviews were near-universal in their praise of its handling. It's widely considered one of the best-handling sports cars of the 2010s.
What "lightness" means for an EV
The A110's character is built on lightness. Curb weight matters for everything that defines how a sports car feels: turn-in response, mid-corner balance, brake performance, suspension behavior, acceleration off corners.
For an EV, lightness is the hardest thing to preserve. Battery packs add hundreds of kilograms. Even the most efficient modern EV architectures struggle to bring a sports car below 1,500 kg. Most EV sports cars and coupes — including the Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron GT, and Lotus Eletre — sit well above 2,000 kg.
Alpine's new APP platform is the company's answer. The platform is being designed specifically to support a lightweight sports car architecture, with battery layout and motor configuration optimized for the same kind of mass distribution the original A110 achieved.
The Goodwood mule will be the first public signal of whether Alpine has succeeded. If the mule's weight is in the 1,300-1,500 kg range, the A110's character can plausibly survive. If it's closer to 1,800 kg or above, the platform has fallen into the same trap as every other EV sports car.
What Alpine is saying about the platform
From Alpine's own framing:
- "Preserve the lightweight, agile character that defines the A110" — explicit commitment to the original's character, not a substitution with EV performance metrics
- "Performance intended to surpass today's internal-combustion sports cars" — the bar is set high, against ICE competitors not just EV competitors
- "Alpine Performance Platform" — a named platform, suggesting this is a serious engineering investment rather than a compliance-driven EV conversion
The strategic intent is clear: Alpine wants the next-gen A110 to be the electric sports car that proves lightness beats power, not the electric sports car that abandons lightness to chase power figures.
What Goodwood will actually tell us
Goodwood debuts for development mules are unusual. Most carmakers prefer to wait until the production car is ready before showing it on a public stage. Alpine is showing the mule early because:
- It's a brand-defining statement. The A110 is Alpine's most important model. Showing the mule in public says Alpine is confident enough in the platform direction to put it in front of an audience that knows exactly what the original A110 felt like.
- It builds anticipation for the production reveal. A Goodwood mule debut is a marketing moment that creates a year-plus of consumer anticipation before the actual car goes on sale.
- It's an engineering signal. Alpine is signaling to industry observers that APP is real engineering, not a slide deck.
The downside risk: if the mule looks or performs like a heavier, less characterful sports car than the original, the early public reveal will be remembered as the moment Alpine lost its way.
What the broader Alpine lineup tells us
The Goodwood lineup tells us Alpine's EV transition isn't just about the A110. The brand is now building out a full EV lineup:
- A290 — electric hot hatch, current best-seller
- A390 — 470 hp electric sport fastback, just announced
- Next-gen A110 — flagship, development mule showing now
That's a coherent product strategy: small hot hatch (entry-level, daily drivable), medium sport fastback (performance family), and lightweight sports coupe (halo). Each model has a clear role in the lineup, and none of them is trying to be a generic EV crossover.
Alpine is one of the few carmakers building an EV-only performance brand with a coherent model hierarchy. The Goodwood debut is the moment the brand's EV strategy becomes legible as a strategy rather than a series of product launches.
What to watch over the next 12 months
- Production-reveal timing. When does Alpine show the production-ready next-gen A110? Goodwood is the mule; expect the production version in 2027 at a major auto show.
- The platform's weight. If Alpine publishes curb weight for the mule or early production specs, that's the single most important number for evaluating whether the A110's character has survived.
- The A390's market reception. The 390 is the lineup test. If the sport fastback finds buyers, the brand has commercial viability for the more expensive A110 project.
- Whether other lightweight EV sports cars follow. If the next-gen A110 is genuinely lightweight, expect other carmakers to follow. If it's another heavy EV sports car with a fastback shape, expect the segment to consolidate around Lotus, Caterham, and boutique builders.
The verdict
The next-gen Alpine A110 is the most consequential electric sports car debut of 2026. Not because it's the fastest, the longest-range, or the most technologically advanced. Because it's the test of whether an EV can preserve the lightweight-sports-car character that defines the segment.
Alpine has built its entire brand around the A110's character. The bet they're making at Goodwood is that the new Alpine Performance Platform can deliver EV powertrains without sacrificing the weight, balance, and agility that made the A110 a benchmark. If the mule performs the way Alpine is framing it, the next-gen A110 becomes the proof that EVs can carry forward the best of the ICE sports car tradition.
If it doesn't, the A110's character ends up being one of those things that only worked with combustion engines. The next 12 months will tell us which.
Source: Electric Cars Report — Alpine to Reveal Next-Gen A110 Electric Sports Car at Goodwood. By Blagojce Krivevski, 22 June 2026. AutoWheeler analysis built on the source reporting; opinion and interpretation are our own.