My very recent experience with Alpine is similar. The dealers I’ve interacted with have Alpine integrated into large Renault dealerships with dedicated Alpine showrooms and one salesperson dealing with all Alpine enquiries … I expect they’re getting overwhelmed! I’ve emailed, phoned and left messages and no one has got back to me! Yep, it’s poor customer service and I ask myself if I should do business with them, or take my money elsewhere.
I wonder about that. They really don’t sell many units here in the UK. The cars have a production shelf life for sure….Many options are fast disappearing from the configurator, colors and wheels and such. You can’t ever really spec it as you’d like somehow. I guess less to think about but doesn’t that rather take the shine off what is now a £70K car…?
Yes, if you start loading your favourite options into the configurator you end with a figure way over base price - the aero kit on the S in £6k alone - which makes some of the stock cars on offer look more attractive. The 3 I've looked into are all discounted between 6 - 8%.
Ah, the good old days Loz, when real racers like Gerry Marshall drank IrnBru and his mates were teetotal non-smokers - as if
The one I'm toying with is the San Remo 73. It comes as it comes, so there's no getting bogged down in spec/options. It qualifies for the 0% finance deal and I love the colour, and the white wheels, and the micro-suede interior. The stickers are removble, so that's not an issue. But I'm less convinced about the red carbon roof (though I suppose that could be black carbon wrapped).
They certainly have one of those at Hendy Alpine in Southampton, with the red roof. Ask for Adam Stewart who heads up Alpine sales over there … I didn’t pay much attention to it as I was more interested in a GT, but subsequently think the S is the one to go for due to the stiffened up chassis etc and improved road handling at higher speeds. Presumably the San Remo is an S under its skin(?). So it’s priced about £8k over the S stock that’s on offer. Never that sure about future residuals beyond any agreed GFV but I reckon the car is a guaranteed future classic - much like the 4C - without waiting 20 years for people to adopt it as such, so should see off the depreciation to some extent.
Gerry Marshall drinking IrnBru, with an biography titled "Only here for the beer" I think notAh, the good old days Loz, when real racers like Gerry Marshall drank IrnBru and his mates were teetotal non-smokers - as if
Yep, the reviews do vary. Problem is most of them only assess / compare the cars at legal speeds on British B roads. However, if you check out the reviews that test the cars on unrestricted Autobahn then you find the road holding of the standard car declines as it approaches maximum speed. Alpine were able to address that with the changes they made in the S, and deliver a slight increase in top speed to 161 mph (or 170 mph with the aero pack).
If you get a spreadsheet up and make some assumptions about interest rates on your savings and depreciation, you'll find that you'll be about £5k better off by buying a brand new S outright under their 0% PCP offer than paying cash for a 3 year old S. Of course, by 'better off' I mean that you'll lose about £5K less by buying the new car ... LOL! ... e.g. Assuming interest rates of around 4.5% and depreciation over 3 years of about 25% I come out with a loss of around £11,300 on a brand new S (£69k) vs a loss of £16,500 on a used S (£43k) ...
The San Remo looks tasty
Will look smart parked next to the Lambo tractor !
And my Urraco. The blue of the San Remo is not too dissimilar to that.
You are correct and I am wrong. The 0% deals are only on stock cars, and these are running out so unlikely to go beyond this month. Very few GT’s left, but better stock of S variants. (According to the dealer I just chatted to.)
