Car Spot: 85 Renault Alpine GTA

Almost rebadged as the AMX in the US …

American Motors was trying its best to make the partnership deal with Renault work when the two connected in 1979. My dad was there at the time making sure parts got to every zone office throughout the country, and he was somewhat happy about it. It gave AMC the cash it needed and two Renault cars to be built in Kenosha, so it was a lifeline.

Besides the Alliance and Encore, there were Renaults built in France and sold at AMC dealers. This included the sub-subcompact LeCar, Renault 18i sedan/wagon, and sporty Fuego. There was one that they were working on just before Chrysler bought AMC in 1987 and it could’ve been one of AMC’s coolest performance cars ever, a rebadged Renault Alpine (pronounced Alpene) GTA Turbo called the AMC GTA USA. Or even the AMX. Don’t laugh because Pontiac did the same thing when the slapped a GTO badge on a Holden in 2004.

I remember my dad talking about this and at the time the National Parts Distribution Center that he worked at in Milwaukee also housed AMC’s tech service department. Dad called me down to take a look at an Alpine that had just come off the boat from France. There his buddy who ran the department told me that they’d take the car apart to see what makes it tick and see if any issues were bringing it into the US. It was a two-plus-two coupe with a rear-mounted 2.5-liter, single-turbo PRV V6 sending 200 horsepower and 210 pound-feet of torque through a five-speed manual to the rear wheels, which hauled the 2,601-lb coupe along nicely. It achieved zero-to-60 mph in about seven seconds and could reach 155 mph. Those may not sound like much today, but they were roughly on par with the C4 Chevy Corvette at the time. That might’ve been why Renault was hot on exporting it to the US.

Like many captive imports at the time, the one Alpine that landed in the US got the ugly oversized bumpers along with some other mods. Its chassis differed significantly, with a stamped steel front subframe instead of the Euro model’s tubular one, and for safety, reinforced doors for better side impacts. The headlights were swapped for flip-up units, emissions equipment was added, sucking 20 hp, and the suspension was retuned. All of these added significant weight tipping the scale at 2,921 lbs.

Renault aimed to have the car ready for showrooms by March 1987 and even had AMC some ads in the pipeline hyping the sleek new sports car in the mid-’80s. By December 1986, Renault had built 21 pre-production cars, setting the stage for a planned 500-unit run for 1987. Renault itself wasn’t in good shape either at this time, in part due to investment in AMC and a cutting-edge new factory in Canada. Despite pressure to split with AMC, Jeep had just introduced a new XJ Cherokee and YJ Wrangler, new chairman Georges Besse favored sticking it out.

But on November 11, 1986, it all came apart when Besse was assassinated by a French militant group. Renault bailed and sold to Chrysler in March or 87 without even mentioning a thing to the AMC people, the very month the AMC GTA USA was meant to go on sale. With the car set to go, Renault looked to do a distribution deal with Chryler but it never happened and the closest the GTA USA came to fruition was having some of its design elements repurposed in the Alpine A610.

What are they worth now? There were 21 prototypes produced and when the plug was pulled were scattered all over Europe. One was purchased by a buyer in the US and brought back in 2000. I could not find a suggested MSRP for the US model but the Europe-spected ones, which can be imported, sell for around 20 grand.

As one of the many AMC geeks, we always speculate about what could have been only if……. AMC versions of the A610, the Twingo, Espace, Clio V6, or maybe even an AMC Sport Spider, but we’ll never know. Sigh.

Thanks for stopping by and reading about this week’s spot. Come back next Friday for another unique car I’ve encountered in my travels, and be sure to check out the many others I have on our site. Have a great weekend.