Yes, I’ve displayed a similar car before. On that lovely 50 Ans diorama. But that was on a fixed position so I couldn’t get all the angles properly shot. And why would I need an excuse to display another Alpine in the first place? Alpines are awesome! And they’re the backbone of my French Collection.
And in that previous post I already pointed out some of it’s history and technical background. So what’s more to tell? Well, that this one is in fact some sort of French cousin of the Porsche 356. Why? Hear me out. It’s a great little story.
You probably guessed where it’s engine is. Way in the back, behind it’s rear axle. Check. Driving it’s rear wheels. Check. Heavily based on a bread & butter family car. Check. But the most important thing is even more blood-line establishing.
The cars they’re using as a source, the VW Beetle and the Renault 4CV, have a very strong connection. On multiple levels. Just prior to the war Renault’s boss, Louis Renault him self, demanded his staff to “Make him a car like the Germans”, hinting at the VW Beetle. But developing a car during the war was forbidden by the occupation forces as factories were needed to produce weapons.
So Projet 106E was a low profile one during those years (do you see that projectnumber Renault used? Guess where Alpine got it’s nomenclature from!). But still: Work was done on it, covered by an engineering project Renault was allowed to work on: Developing a new engine for a post-war car. And after the war was over the French government was allowed to invite German engineers to help with the development as some sort of a war reparation compensation. Do you see where this is going to?
Indeed: None other than Ferdinand Porsche, designer of the VW Beetle, was invited to come over to Renault. And with him came his son Ferry, designer of the Porsche 356. But what their influence actually was we’ll probably never know. Pierre Lefaucheux, former member of le resistance and post-war director at Renault, wasn’t as happy with the German influence (Pierre had suffered Gestapo interrogations and some time in Buchenwald’s concentration camp so you can imagine some hatred when it comes to Germans) so he used his connections (so it is said) to have Ferdinand arrested.
Ferdinand saw no trial whatsoever but ended up doing time for 20 months in prison. For having French forced laborers in the VW factory during the war. Post-war Europe was a weird confusing time. But now I’m drifting a bit too far away from today’s French Friday topic, excuse me. So back to the A106.
This one is a 1956 A106 Mille Milles. In 1956 Alpine had won the Mille Miglia road race with a competition A106 and the Mille Milles, more or less, was the road going version of that. With double as much hp than the base A106. But still not much in today’s world as it was only 43 hp.
The Mille Milles was lighter as well. It was a whole 40kgs lighter, bringing it down to 530 kgs. Still no staggering top speed, it just went over 150 km/h. But then again: The car it was based on didn’t even get to 100 km/h (61 mph).
The diecast is a 1/43 from Norev/UniversalHobbies/M6. What? Yes. It was from a collection of 100 Renaults by M6 Interactions, a media company. They came with a magazine and the casts were produced by either Norev or Universal Hobbies. This one is from Norev if I’m not mistaken.
It’s hard to tell if it’s accurate as the 1/1 is pretty obscure with only about 50 known survivors (all A106 versions). I like the fact that the Mille Milles script on the side is only on the driver’s side. Looking at this picture of a Concours d’Elegance in Apeldoorn (from AMKlassiek.nl) it’s on the other side as well:
But I suppose few of the A106's were completely the same anyway. And if you’re thinking “hey, it also has other wheels”: the ones on the white Mille Milles are from a normal 4CV. And I’ve seen several pictures of Mille Milles with the ones on the Norev 1/43 as well.
Just those blinkers in the C-pillar look totally odd. But just pinch your eyes a bit and look again to the picture above: Don’t tell me you don’t see at least a small resemblance to the 356. I’m only wondering what Jean Rédelé was thinking when he came up with the side windows behind the door...
Et c’est la fin de mon Vendredi Français. I’m happy I did another Alpine. It probably will be somewhere in 2020 before I’m doing a piece on my last one if I maintain this pace. Bon Week-end!
