50 shades of blue: an iconic color for a legendary car

Car fans have the image of a blue Alpine Berlinette in front of their eyes, completing every rally test with agility and speed. The countless successes of the A110 in the 1960s and 1970s left a strong mark on generations of fans and created a close connection between color and vehicle.

"Here at Alpine, blue is more than just a color - it's a Symbol for the brand." Antony Villain, Alpine Design Director

One of many in the rich color palette

In the early years of the brand, blue was by no means the preferred color. When the company's founder Jean Rédélé presented his first models to the then Renault boss Pierre Dreyfus in 1955 at the company's headquarters near Paris, he drove up with a blue, a white and a red car, alluding to the French national colors. In the early years, the colors red, white and yellow were much more popular than blue on the Alpine roads. Rédélé himself also competes in motorsport with a white or light blue A106.

The A110 becomes the blue flounder

Only with the introduction of the A110 did the metallic blue appear, which would later become a trademark. The story goes that a customer chose the color Panama blue for his Berlinette, and that salesman Jacques Cheinisse - an avid rally driver who later became the brand's sporting director - is so impressed with it that he orders the same paint job for the A110 that he competes in rallies from 1963.

The color option is rapidly gaining popularity and will soon become the standard paintwork of the factory Alpine, which emphatically strengthens the long-term, textbook-like color association. The decision also ties in with the French racing color blue, which was used in motorsport for many years (along with red for Italy, green for Great Britain and white, then silver for Germany, etc.). This tradition lasted in Grand Prix sport until 1967.

However, Metallic Alpine Blue - known for a long time as RE331 - is not the only blue that Alpine customers can choose, because the catalog also includes Metallic Azur Blue, Metallic Acier Blue, Metallic Pacifique Blue and Metallic Estoril Blue. “There was never really a single Alpine blue,” notes Antony Villain. “At that time there were also a multitude of yellow, red and orange tones. Interestingly, the color of the last A110, which rolled off the assembly line in 1977 at the Alpine plant in Dieppe in Normandy, was a splendid Metallic Normand Green! "

It is the success of the French Berlinette in motorsport - together with the attractive price of the color option - that makes metallic blue such a resounding success with buyers. “In the 1980s, numerous Alpes that were not originally blue were repainted by their owners,” says Antony Villain. In fact, there are more blue A110s today than back then, when metallic blue vehicles made up only 30 percent of orders.

The right shade of blue for every fashion

When Renault decided in 2012 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the A110 in style with the A110-50 concept car, metallic blue was the natural choice for the body color. "It was touted as the iconic Alpine blue, but in reality it was different," says Antony Villain. “When the Alpine brand was revitalized, one of our first tasks was to design a paint job for the Alpine sports prototypes that would take part in endurance races. We didn't have a lot of time and eventually decided to use the same color on the concept car. We have kept it ever since. "

This blue can also be found on the current A110 road vehicles, the A480 of the Alpine Elf Matmut Endurance Team and the A521 of the Alpine F1 Team. For the latter, however, a special, slightly lighter variant is used, which was developed together with the engineers of the Formula 1 team. It stands out more clearly from the black racetrack and improves the visibility of the sponsors on the racing car.

Also in the future 50 shades of blue

The Alpine design director and his team are by no means tied to a single color, but can instead develop creatively: “As designers, we look ahead, into the future. Blue may be a cornerstone, but it gives us an infinite variety of shades. That's what makes it so interesting. We are faced with the challenge of finding new colors, new processes and new color depths in order to keep up with the times and new technologies. ”So the future Alpine versions could actually cause one or two surprises when it comes to the body colors. If we get more information, there will of course be an update for this report. You will be informed of this if you simply do ours Feed subscribe to. Have fun watching the pictures and stay true to us!