Alpine A110 Blue

Alpine A110 Blue, the blue of a French rally coupe

Few cars are as firmly bound to their color as the A110. Blue is not one of its variants but its mark of recognition: French racing blue became part of the identity of the whole brand, and its modern successor carries it to this day.

The car behind the name of the shade

The Alpine A110 was built from the beginning of the 1960s to the second half of the 1970s. It was a light rear-engined berlinetta with a fiberglass body on a backbone frame, powered by the production engines of a large French maker. It was low weight that made it the terror of rally stages: in 1973, when the world rally championship was first run in its present form, the brand took the manufacturers' title and its cars took the head of the Monaco event. The silhouette with its rounded tail and four round lights at the front is among the best-known shapes in European motoring.

What the shade stands out on

• bodies of French rally cars of the 1960s and 1970s
• models with white race numbers and circles, where the blue makes the ground
• civilian forms of the light coupes of that era
• accessories and service machinery for rally scenes

Who the paint serves

It will be appreciated by builders of rally models and collectors of French cars, for whom the shade of a body is part of the real subject rather than a choice. The cars were assembled under license outside France as well, among other places in Spain and in Bulgaria, and the license examples differed from the French ones in details of the body. No standard number appears in the name and no match with one is inferred here, and the tone of surviving cars moreover differs after restoration, so compare with the references for the particular kit.