Alpine might have finally delivered a premium French car that Brits will take seriously

It’s fair to say that French premium cars don’t tend to go down a storm on this side of La Manche. Indeed, they don’t really captivate the imagination of car buyers anywhere outside of France itself. 

If it’s got a German badge, we’ll snap it up like free pretzels at a beer festival – paying through the nose in the process – but Renault, Peugeot, Citroen and even DS have roundly failed to persuade British buyers to pay extra for their high-end, leather-lined creations over the years. And heaven knows, they’ve made a lot of attempts to do so. 

The list of posh French cars that have launched in the UK over recent decades is a litany of buyer apathy and disinterest, followed by catastrophic depreciation. Renault’s Vel Satis, Peugeot’s 607, Citroen’s C6, even the modern DS 9… all are big French cars that shied away from the chance to battle the Germans at their own game. Instead, they subscribed to a vision of automotive French luxury that amounted to piling on the kit, chrome and leather while striving to engineer a ride so soft and floaty that occupants wouldn’t notice if the car drove over a pillar box.

The fact that the game created by Mercedes, BMW and Audi was one that the planet’s premium car-buying public obviously liked playing - a lot - didn’t seem to register in Paris. Maybe France’s car executives were too busy running their fingers across the latest batch of quilted leather swatches and sniffing the perfume vials for their scented air-conditioning systems. 

While French car makers have long been convinced that premium cars are all about comfort and equipment, the Germans and their customers know the market is all about image – essentially what the car says about the person driving it. This ethos has been rooted in and built on the quality and engineering of the cars themselves. 

This, finally, is where Alpine comes in. It’s a brand that has expressly stated it DOES want to take on the Germans at their own game – although not in the traditional premium car market. Alpine is a sports car brand that is focused on emotional connection with the driver through, you’ve guessed it, good engineering. 

What this purity of focus and the critical acclaim lavished on its A110 sports car have given Alpine is credibility. This is a French car brand that seems to be in the early stages of building a level of coolness and exclusivity that DS can only dream of with its heavily fettled Citroens. 

Now Alpine has launched a £62,000 mid-size coupé-SUV in the shape of the A390, and though the car’s focus is on beating rivals such as the Porsche Macan with a more nimble driving experience, it’s also reasonably plush inside, with technology that feels resolutely upmarket.

The car is not without its flaws, but the fact that it’s French and can carry that weighty price tag without drawing sniggers from the back of the class is unusual. Alpine might have delivered the first premium French car in years that UK car buyers will take seriously, and without really trying. 

Maybe that’s the secret.

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