Sadly, you won’t be able to buy the concept car shown here. This white and red monster of an EV rally machine is strictly for display; it heralds the announcement of a new capsule collection uniting French fashion brand Lacoste with Alpine, once the sporting side of Renault and now a standalone brand (which already has a partnership with Gucci in the bag).
Beware of the Crocodile - Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye
The result is ‘Beware of the Crocodile - Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye’, a cartoonish blend of iconography that pushes the respective boundaries of each brand into edgier, more eye-catching heritage. The collaboration is also marked with a short film, The Test, featuring Lacoste ambassadors, actor Pierre Niney and Pierre Gasly, BWT Alpine Formula One Team driver.
The basis for the concept is the A290 Rallye, the performance-focused variant of the Alpine A290, itself a clear derivative of the Renault 5. The Rallye model is aimed at customers who want to get into electric motorsport.
Beware of the Crocodile - Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye
Happily for the partnership, Alpine’s historic racing heritage dovetails perfectly with Lacoste’s status as the preeminent expression of sporting style and luxury. Founded by the French tennis player René Lacoste in 1933, a ferocious player nicknamed ‘the Crocodile’, the company has remained at the intersection of high fashion, sportswear and design.
The Lacoste x Alpine collaboration ably conveys this cross-pollination with just the right amount of strength, style and playful fury. The vehicle itself is straight out of the rally paddock, with a widened track, hefty spoilers and exposed carbon-fibre elements. Finished in bespoke white paint with hints of blue (redolent of Alpine landscapes, apparently), it has a purposeful, minimal appearance.
Inside, it’s more of a fashion-forward environment. Red envelopes everything, ‘as if the driver were literally stepping into the crocodile's mouth’, according to the two companies. As Lacoste proudly points out, there are no fewer than 290 crocodiles incorporated into the design, from semi-submerged creatures on the parcel shelf to a scattering of logos across the dash, a veritable bask of toothy menace.
Seat and door panels are finished in Lacoste's emblematic petit piqué fabric, with embroidery by Potencier, the workshop responsible for the embroidered crocodile logo that graces Lacoste polo shirts. 3D printing is also deployed throughout the interior, both for weight-saving, but also to express branding elements wherever possible.
All this design synergy has also resulted in a capsule collection. Comprising of polo shirts, T-shirts, accessories and co-branded objects, the Lacoste x Alpine Collection illustrates two French brands eager to join hands to promote their core values.
As Lacoste CEO Eric Vallat, notes, ‘by bringing together our heritage, expertise and creative standards, Lacoste and Alpine have imagined a project that celebrates French ingenuity through a shared vision of performance and elegance’.