Jean Dieppe’s Alpine had become renowned in the 1960s for its performance automobiles built using highly modified Renault rear-engined drivetrains. After years of a casual affiliation between Renault and Alpine, the former purchased the latter outright and began to use Alpine to produce special high-performance versions of its products, much as Daimler-Benz employs AMG.

The Renault Alpine V6 Turbo of 1985–1990 was designed as a contemporary of the Porsche 944, but it was in many ways a faster, more powerful automobile. Performance was aided by new modern bodywork, renowned for its high aerodynamic efficiency (drag coefficient of 0.28) and then-innovative use of lightweight materials, including polyester fabrics and fiberglass. The body was mounted on a Lotus-style backbone chassis and equipped with a turbocharged V-6 engine. Much of the work that went into the car was handcrafted, thus resulting in a limited production of only about three V6 Turbos daily.

The V6 Turbo offered here was imported from Japan and is therefore a non-U.S. specification model with the somewhat hotter engine. Since relatively few of these cars were delivered in North America to begin with, it remains an extremely rare sight here and is sure to be among the biggest head-turners at local “cars and coffee” and import events this summer. It remains in very good original condition, including the elegant dark blue exterior finish, grey leather interior, and OEM alloy wheels, and it had been driven about 28,000 kilometers (or 17,000 miles) at the time of cataloguing.

This model provides a wonderful opportunity to enjoy better performance than an entry-level Porsche of the same era, at prospective lower cost—and with grand French style to boot!