Team Lotus owned Caterham cars and French auto giant Renault has formed a joint venture to build affordable sports cars. Caterham will acquire 50 per cent the defunct Alpine Renault car company (to take place in January 2013) and will rename the new company Société des Automobiles Alpine Caterham.
The new cars will be produced at Alpine’s plant in Normandy in France under the Caterham and Alpine moniker and will go on sale in 2015. The new company is targeting markets in Asia and Europe as well. Caterham has said that it chose Renault due to their partnership in Formula one as well as due to the vast experience the French automaker has in the sport.
No financial details of the JV have been made public but the Malaysian automaker says it includes cooperation for venturing into the development of city cars, crossovers and SUVs in the future. If the sports cars from this JV are truly ‘affordable’ and given Renault's current form of success, then we can be very sure that they will arrive in the Indian market shortly after their international launch.
