Alpine A110 vs McLaren 720S

What's the difference?

Don't let the overall score fool you. The Alpine A110 is an instant classic. While practicality, safety and ownership costs don't set the world on fire, it delivers a driving experience that makes everything right with the world every time you get behind the wheel.

Past McLarens have been accused of being a bit soulless, but this one is alive. The last time I felt like this in a car was a Ferrari F12, one of the scariest but most brilliant cars I've ever driven. Except the 720S isn't scary on the road, just sheer genius.

The 720S doesn't necessarily beat the competition but it opens up new ways of doing supercar things. It's a car that looks amazing, is more than fit for purpose but has a wider range of talents than the others. 

That makes it ever more compelling, both as a piece of automotive brilliance to admire, andl as something to consider when you've got half a Sydney apartment to spend on a car.

Australian roads await, but the drive through rural English country roads and villages was a great preview. All I can say is: gimme one.

The final example of the original Alpine A110 rolled out of the Dieppe plant in 1977, and despite more than four decades separating it from this newcomer, the 2019 A110 is effectively a new-generation version.

Much more than a tip of the hat to a special predecessor, the new A110 perfectly updates the distinctive, purposeful look of its not-so-ancient ancestor.

In fact, head of the A110 design team, Antony Villain says, "We wondered; if the A110 never went away, if this new car was the sixth or seventh generation A110, what would it look like?"

Appropriately finished in a very French shade of 'Alpine Blue', our test example was one of 60 'Australian Premiere Edition' cars, and the design is full of intriguing details.

At just under 4.2m long, 1.8m wide, and only a touch over 1.2m high the two-seat A110 is compact to say the least.

It's raked LED headlights and round fog lights are recessed into the markedly curved nose in a complete and unabashed reload, with circular LED DRLs accentuating the throwback effect.

The overall look of the carefully scalloped bonnet is also familiar, with a huge under-bumper grille and side ducts creating an air curtain along the front wheel wells to finish off the treatment with a focused, technical touch.

A steeply raked windscreen runs up to a small turret with a broad channel running down its entre, and the flanks are narrowed by a lengthy, aero-influenced indent.

A case study in tightly wrapped surfacing, the rear-end is equally taut, with elements like 'X-shaped' LED tail-lights, tightly curved rear screen, single central exhaust outlet and aggressive diffuser continuing the expressive design theme.

Aero efficiency is a major influence, and as well as the diffuser careful inspection of the rear side window reveals a neat duct at its trailing-edge funnelling air to the mid/rear-mounted engine, and the underbody is smoothed near flat. An overall drag co-efficient of 0.32 is impressive for such a small car.

The A110 also proudly wears its French heart on its sleeve, with an enamel version of Le Tricolore attached to the C-pillar (and various points around the interior).

Eighteen-inch Otto Fuchs forged alloy rims fit the car's style and proportions perfectly with body-colour matching blue brake calipers poking through the delicate split-spoke design.

The interior is all business with racy Sabelt one-piece bucket seats setting the tone. Trimmed in a combination of quilted leather and microfibre (which extends to the doors) they are separated by a floating, flying buttress-style console housing key controls above and a storage tray (including multi-media inputs) below.

Highlights include cool body-colour panels in the doors, a Ferrari-like push-button gear selection set-up, slender alloy manual shift paddles attached to the steering column (not the wheel), matt carbon-fibre accents on the console and around the circular air vents, and a 10.0-inch TFT digital instrument cluster (which morphs to suit Normal, Sport or Track modes).

The A110's chassis and body are made from aluminium, with a brushed form of that material adorning everything from the pedals and perforated passenger footrest to multiple dash trim pieces.

Quality and attention to detail is outstanding to the point that just getting in the car feels like a special occasion. Every time.

The 720S has received mixed reviews but nobody will say it isn't striking. I love it - every designer says their influence is a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (designer Melville even jokes about it), but you really can see it in the 720S, especially in the cockpit design, which looks like a glass canopy from that surveillance jet.

McLaren's signature dihedral doors, which go all the way back to the 1994 McLaren F1, are substantial, with a double skin to act as a serious piece of aero kit.

Melville told me in January that he thinks the cars look shaped by nature, using the example of a stone left in a stream to erode. The 720S is full of details evoking that image, with a clean, taut surface. Where everyone complained that the 12C was "designed in a wind tunnel", the 720S looks designed by the wind. In the carbon and aluminium, it looks extraordinary.

One of the most talked about features are those headlights - almost always finished in black, they're known as "the socket". When you get close you see slim LED DRLs, small but powerful headlights, and you then discover two radiators behind them. Follow it through and the air exits through the bumper, around the wheels and then through the door. It's quite something.

Inside is the McLaren we've come to know and love, but with a clever kicker. The dash panel looks lifted from a race car - but with far nicer graphics. Switch to "active" mode, turn everything up to Track and the panel swings down and presents you with a minimised set of instruments to reduce distraction and make up for a lack of head-up display - just speed, get and, revs.

Practicality is the oil to a two-seat sports car's water. If you want day-to-day functionality, look elsewhere. Quite rightly, the Alpine A110 puts driver engagement at the top of the priority list.

That said, with limited real estate to work with the car's development team has made it liveable, with a surprising amount of boot space included, and modest storage options snuck in around the cabin.

The heavily-bolstered, high-sided sports seats, necessitate use of the 'one hand on the A-pillar and swing in/out' technique for entry and exit, which won't suit everyone. And once inside several things are missing.

Glove box? No. If you need to refer to the owner's manual or grab the service book, they're housed in a small satchel attached to the bulkhead behind the driver's seat.

Door pockets? Forget it. Cupholders? Well, there's one, it's tiny, and located between the seats where only a double-joined circus contortionist could reach it.

There is a long storage bin under the centre console, which is helpful, although it's hard to reach in and actually extract things placed in it. Media inputs run to two USBs, an 'aux-in' and an SD card slot, but their location at the front of that lower storage area is tricky, and there's a 12-volt outlet just in front of the unreachable cupholder.

However, if you and a passenger want to head off on a weekend road trip, amazingly, you can take some luggage with you. With the engine located between the axles there's room for a 96-litre boot at the front and a 100-litre boot at the rear.

We managed to fit the middle (68-litre) hard suitcase from our three-piece set (35, 68 and 105 litres) in the broad but relatively shallow front boot, while the wider, deeper, but shorter rear boot is best for soft bags.

Another missing item is a spare tyre, with a neatly packaged repair/inflator kit your only option in the case of a puncture.

For a supercar, there is a surprising amount of space in the cabin. You can strap 220 litres of (hopefully) soft stuff on the rear shelf behind the seats and there's a 150-litre boot under the nose. You can store your track gear under there, including helmet, or even cram in a few soft bags for a weekend away.

Again, unusually a for a supercar, you're also  treated to a couple of storage cubbies in the centre console.

There's plenty of room in cabin for two bodies and the driver's seat offers lots of adjustment. Despite being so close to the front wheels, your feet have space even for my ridiculous duck feet to fit easily. There's even enough headroom for those over six feet, although the glass portholes in the top of dihedral doors might not be so welcome in an Australian summer.

Kicking off at $489,900 plus on roads, it's fairly clear that the car the local operation has in its sights is the Ferrari 488 GTB, which sells for around $20,000 less but rarely arrives with less than $40,000 in options on board. Two further versions of the 720S are available from $515,080, the Luxury and Performance spec levels, both largely cosmetic.

The 720S ships with 19-inch front wheels and 20-inch rears wrapped in Pirelli P-Zeros. The exterior is finished in "dark palladium" trim and the cabin is lined with Alcantara and Nappa leather. Also onboard is a four-speaker stereo, digital dash, dual-zone climate control, sat nav, active LED headlights, power windows, sports fronts seats and not much else.

A predictably lengthy options list includes paint from $0 to $20,700 (McLaren Special Operations, or MSO, will cheerfully find ways to charge you more for that extra special paint job), but most of the list is carbon fibre bits, reversing camera ($2670!), a $9440 Bowers and Wilkins stereo... you get the picture. The sky, or your credit card, is the limit.

The front lift kit is $5540 and totally worth it to protect the underbelly from driveways. Unlike a couple of Italian rivals, it's not mandatory for all speed-bump ascents.

As we discover every time we look at a car like this, the spec seems slim but none of its competitors have much in them, so it's line-ball.

The Alpine A110's (M5P) all-alloy 1.8-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine is closely related to the unit found under the bonnet of the Renault Megane R.S.

Alpine has modified the intake manifold, exhaust and overall calibration, but the big difference here is that although it's still transversely mounted, in the Alpine the engine sits in a mid/rear position and drives the rear wheels (rather than in the R.S.'s nose driving the fronts).

Featuring direct injection and a single turbo it produces 185kW at 6000rpm, and 320Nm of torque from 2000-5000rpm, compared to 205kW/390Nm in the Megane R.S. But the Alpine's 356kg weight advantage means it boasts a 169kW/tonne power-to-weight ratio, while the Megane sits at 141kW/tonne.

Drive goes to a Getrag-sourced seven-speed (wet) dual-clutch auto transmission, with Alpine-specific ratios inside.

The 720S runs a 4.0-litre version of McLaren's familiar flat-plane crank twin-turbo V8. Power is up to 537kW (or 720PS, hence the name) and torque up almost 100Nm to 770Nm, from 678. McLaren says 41 percent of the components are new.

A seven-speed twin clutch sends power to the rear wheels and the 1283kg dry (down 106kg from the 650S) monster hits 100km/h in 2.9 seconds, surely a cautious claim. The more alarming 0-200km/h clam is a terrifying 7.8 seconds, half a second quicker than its closest rival, the 488 GTB. That is seriously, insanely quick, while top speed is equally bonkers at 341km/h.

Instead of a complicated and heavy active differential, the 720S uses the rear brakes and various other methods to get the same effect. It's one of several ideas pinched from F1, some of them now banned.

Claimed fuel economy for the combined (ADR 81/02 - urban, extra-urban) cycle is 6.2L/100km, the 1.8-litre four emitting 137g/km of CO2 in the process.

Over close to 400km worth of often 'enthusiastic' driving, taking in city, suburban and freeway running we recorded an average of 9.6L/100km.

Definitely a miss, but not bad when you consider we hit the off switch for the standard stop-start system on a consistent basis and regularly took advantage of the accelerator pedal's ability to move towards the floor.

Minimum fuel requirement is 95 RON premium unleaded, and you'll need just 45 litres of it to fill the tank.

McLaren claims the European combined cycle could return 10.7L/100km, but we have no way of knowing if that is accurate because we weren't mucking about on the day we had the car.

Weighing at just 1094kg (target weight was 1100kg), with a 44:56 front-to-rear weight distribution, the all-aluminium A110 is every millimetre the mini-supercar you'd hope it to be.

It only takes two to three rotations of the Alpine's wheels to realise it's exceptional. The Sabelt seat is superb, the chunky steering wheel perfect, and the engine instantly eager to get on with it.

The electro-mechanical power-assisted steering feels just right from the first corner. The rack is quick and road feel is intimate without the crashy feedback penalty paid by the Alfa 4C.

Engage launch control and you're blasting from 0-100km/h 4.5sec, with the engine adding a suitably raucous backing track, a full charge of air rasping through the inlet manifold just behind your ears. Spinning up to the close to 7000rpm rev ceiling is pure pleasure, with peak torque available from just 2000rpm all the way to five grand.

Pressing the wheel-mounted 'Sport' button sharpens gearshifts and holds low ratios for longer, with the already slick dual-clutch really getting its race face on. Hold in the down lever in manual mode and the transmission will instantly shift through to the lowest gear engine revs will allow, the Active-valve sports exhaust chipping in with rude pops and bangs on the over-run. 'Track' mode is even more hardcore, allowing a greater element of slip in cornering. Brilliant.

The engine's mid/rear location delivers a low roll-centre and the double wishbone suspension set-up (front and rear) manages to combine super-sharp dynamic response with a surprisingly civilised ride.

Alpine says the A110's light weight and ultra-rigid chassis mean its coil springs can be reasonably soft and anti-roll bars light so even our truly ordinary urban blacktop doesn't cause too much distress.

The A110 is beautifully balanced, amazingly agile, and satisfyingly precise. Weight transfer in quick cornering is managed to perfection, the car remaining stable, predictable and hugely entertaining.

Grip from the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 rubber (205/40 fr - 235/40 rr) is tenacious, and the torque vectoring system (by braking) quietly keeps things pointing in the right direction if an over-zealous pilot begins to overstep the mark.

Despite the A110's modest kerb weight braking is professional grade. Brembo provides ventilated 320mm rotors (front and rear) with four-piston alloy calipers at the front and single-piston floating calipers at the rear. They're progressive, powerful and consistent.

The only downsides are a clumsy multimedia interface, and the annoying lack of a reversing camera. But who cares, this car is amazing.

One of the biggest changes from 650 to 720 is the new Monocage II carbon fibre tub. The drop in overall weight is partly because the cage now includes the windscreen hoop, which previously was metal. Kerb weight with all fluids and a 90 percent full fuel tank (don't ask why 90 percent, I don't know either) it weighs 1419kg, giving it the same power-to-weight ratio as a Bugatti Veyron. Yikes.

The 720S is an astonishing car. We always say you can pootle in a modern supercar, but the 720S is so user-friendly, maneouvreable and so easy to see out of - there are no significant blind spots with an almost entirely glass roof - you can tackle city and country in comfort mode and actually be comfortable. Comparatively, a Huracan goes all blergh in Strada mode and the 488 GTB never stops begging you to kick it in the guts. The McLaren is easy, liveable and smooth. 

I was driving a left-hand drive car in the UK, which should have been a complete nightmare, but it was fine - the vision is excellent, particularly over the shoulder. 

But when you do decide to kick the 720S into action, it's wild. The acceleration is brutal, the handling impeccable and the ride, oh, the ride. No supercar can handle bumps, irregularities and flat out poor surfaces like the McLaren. The 540C's ride is incredible as it is, but the 720 is just wow.

Because it's quite light, the nose goes where you point it, the huge brakes have less to stop, the towering power less to push. The steering in the 720S is well-weighted but has tons of feel - you know what's going on underneath the double-wishbone sprung front wheels and you can adjust what you're up to accordingly. The stability system is excellent, too. Never overbearing or abrupt, where talent ends and the help begins is delightfully blurry.

The new engine is a bit more tuneful than past McLarens - there's even a loud-start party trick - but it's not loud and overbearing. You'll hear turbos whisting, sighing and pshawing, a deep bassy exhaust note and some awesome intake roar. But there's not much off-throttle character. It does at least do away with the histrionics of the Italians.

The only serious drama is the amount of noise bouncing around the cabin over about 100km/h. There's a lot more glass than sound-soaking Alcantara, which explains some of the extra tyre racket over a 650S. You can't have everything, I guess.

Along with a super-strong carbon tub, to which is fitted aluminium crash structures front and rear, the 720S comes fitted with six airbags, stability and traction controls and carbon ceramic brakes with ABS (100-0 happens in fewer than 30 metres).

The Alpine A10 is covered by a three-year/100,000km warranty with a twist. According to Alpine, the first two years are covered for unlimited kilometres. And if at the end of the second year total kilometres remain less than 100,000, the warranty continues into a third year (still to an overall cap of 100,000km).

So, you can sail over the 100,000km mark in the warranty's first two years, but that means you won't get a third.

Complimentary roadside-assist is provided for 12 months, continuing for up to four years if your Alpine is regularly serviced at an authorised dealer.

There are currently three dealers only – one each in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane – and service is recommended every 12 months/20,000km, with the first two costing $530 each, and the third ramping up to $1280.

You'll also need to factor in a pollen filter ($89) at two years/20,000km and accessory belt replacement ($319) at four years/60,000km.

The 720S comes with McLaren's three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty with roadside assist. McLaren will want to see you every 12 months or 20,000km, which is quite unusual at this level.