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Chances are high that you'll never see an Alpine A106 in the flesh. Only a few hundred were made in the shades of the French tricolor, and this particular car, #282 spent two decades in a French garage before a Dutchman turned it into a four-time Milla Miglia veteran without any modifications. The lack of tweaking is understandable, since those Italian curves are exactly what the class winner of 1956's race was designed for.
The A106 is also the first product of the dream Renault dealer and racing driver Jean Rédélé was chasing when he founded Alpine in 1954.
The first Alpine was inspired by a pair of fiberglass sports cars that were intended for the American market but never came to fruition. After the war, Renault had the 4CV to get Europe moving again, and although this rear-engined economy car was no faster than a period VW Type 1, Amédée Gordini was able to get more juice from its 750cc engine. That inspired multiple people to wrap its unibody chassis in thick layers of fiberglass, and if you're interested in the failures of the Marquis and Allemano coupés, I highly recommend Roy Smith's piece on the subject over at Veloce Today.
The Alpine came about when Renault decided to take matters into its own hand, letting Rédélé team up with fiberglass coachbuilder Chappe et Gessalin. With a bit of a tune curtesy of Gordini and a design by Giovanni Michelotti, the 43 horsepower A106 was ready to go racing by 1955. While options included a "Mille Miles" suspension and a five-speed gearbox, the road-going version wasn't ready before 1957.
Although the A106 remained a rare sight, it made sure that Alpine would keep on challenging Abarths for many years to come. Just like how this white one does, fifty years later:
