Alpine & Renault - The Sports Prototypes, Vol. 1 1963-1969

Alpine & Renault - The Sports Prototypes, Vol. 1 1963-1969 by Book

weight 1.5 kg by Roy Smith Although much has been written about Alpine over the years, for those not conversant in French the information may be a little hard to access. During the research for his recently published history of the Alpine-Renault F1 Turbo project (ISB9781845841775) Roy Smith realised this and also that there was no definitive chassis history of Alpine's sports racing cars, something that he has sought to redress with these two very well written and illustrated volumes. Volume 1 looks at the early history of the company and their first forays into motorsport and then on to their purpose built streamlined coupes which enjoyed much class success in a variety of events during the 1960s. In addition to race photos there is plenty of behind the scenes interest and we see the development and manufacture of the cars. At the end of the 1960s, Renault pulled the plug on Alpine's sports racing activities, the Alpine name instead being used extensively in rallying. In 1973 there was a decision at Renault to mount a serious assault on winning Le Mans outright and the second volume concentrates on this effort through to its culmination in 1978. Again there are plenty of excellent photos and at the end of each volume there are logs for each chassis built in the period covered. Useful resources for historians and modellers alike.