Friday, October 17, 2014

Forza Horizon 2: Barn Find #01

As you continue your Horizon journey on the French village of Sisteron, you picked up a Barn Find Rumor about an abandoned Renault Alpine A110 located somewhere in the vicinity of Sisteron. It took me numerous travels to decipher that barn find rumor and that barn find in question is located 2.2 miles from the Sisteron Horizon Hub.

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If you found the barn find, wait for a couple of moments until you'll get a notification saying that the barn find you found has been restored. If you received that notification, head to the nearest Horizon hub and claim your legendary machine for use to drive in the game. There are 10 total barn finds scattered throughout Southern Europe. Can you find them all?

alpine

Anyway, let's talk about the Renault Alpine A110, the first barn find in Horizon 2 and a legendary rally classic most Forza fans can't wait to get their hands on.

The roots of the A110 began in the 50's when a Renault dealer named Jean Redele pursue his dreams as a rally driver and his tweaked 4CV, despite its size, was capable enough to win an Alpine rally against numerous opposition which had eight cylinders and four or five litre engines. He won 15 races including the Liege-Rome-Liege rally and the Italian Mile Miglia, quite an achievement he done.

Moments later, Redele developed his first prototype Alpine with some of the components lifted from his 4CV, called the A106. Over 200 A106 models was made, in coupe and open-top convertible. Soon afterwards, the A108 was launched as the successor of the A106. The A108 uses components from the Renault Dauphine and it was available first as a cabriolet and only later as a hardtop coupe.

With the introduction of the much more sportier Renault 8 in 1962, Alpine was decided to build the A110 because it was the synthesis of the past two machines; the A106 and A108 and even in modern standards, this old machine still has the magic touch. Yes, it still has the touch. The A110 uses components from the Renault 8 and it featured a steel backbone chassis with a fiberglass body. The engine. Early models come with the R8-sourced engines, namely a 1.1L, a 1.2L and a 1.3L 4-cylinder engines. They were fitted with two 40 DCOE Weber carburettors, Type 80 exhaust manifold, and a hemispheric cylinder head with spark plugs, created by Amedee Gordini.

Two cars a week were being produced in 1964 and sales of the A110 are in record high because of its involvement in motorsports so that's why in 1968, Jean Redele built a new factory that produces six to eight Alpines a day.

In the year 1966, Alpine entered five specially-built prototypes of the A110 to take on the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Having spent 24 hours of struggle on the track, those Alpines are fighting like rapiers and they're doing this to wave the flag of Renault in Le Mans. It was an excellent year for Renault because after racing for 24 hours, it was 1-2-3 punch for Alpine having consumed the least amount of fuel. Again, a remarkable feat for a small company.

With Renault completed the buyout for Alpine, the A110 faced its greatest moment yet and that is taking on the World Rally Championship where it scored eight wins out of 13 events since 1973. It was great at first until the global energy crisis plunged the fate of this tiny car. Sales of sports cars are in all time low when the oil crisis looms and speed limits are first introduced.

With Renault took control of Alpine, tough decisions were made about the future of Alpine and that's why they've created the less-successful A310 which placed the end of the A110's story.

Guess we'll leave it here but it's time for me to give Dieppe's pride some more love in present-day Southern Europe and I used this car in the Classic Rally championship, the one were Fulvias and Stratoses are king. To do that, some improvements to be made to make the A110 competitive.

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I decided to give it some originality when it comes to create liveries specifically for the Horizon Festival but it doesn't matter because it's already as competitive as it was five decades ago. Trust me on this, the A110 is a legend worth driving for and you'll fall in love with its lightweight bodywork and its nimble mobility that will slice the opposition like butter. It maybe old enough to be in the museum but you're feel free to throw a boatload of cash into customizing it.

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