Either way, it’s certainly going to be a very special sight to see and will hopefully be the first of many racing events the Alpine A110-50 Concept will take place in the coming months.

We can confirm that Renault obviously won’t be attempting to break the current hill climb record as the A110-50 ‘only’ pumps out 400 horsepower whereas other racers competing will produce in excess of double that.

Nevertheless, the French brand also confirmed that an extensive list of other racers will compete at the hill climb, including the R5 Maxi Turbo, Megane trophy racer, Alpine A443 and two of the brand’s most historic Formula One cars, being the RE40 and RS01.

This announcement comes in line with Renault’s recent announcement that it’s planning a ‘big surprise’ for the Festival, but we can confirm that that big surprise is not in fact that the Alpine will be competing.

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is the ultimate expression of speed, power, and noise when sports cars, supercars, hypercars, luxury cars, and hot hatches tackle the legendary 1.16-mile hill climb. Additionally, the Festival of Speed also gathers a huge collection of current racing cars and their drivers and past racing cars and their drivers together.

As for the big surprise, Renault has already unveiled several vehicles that were a little out of the norm for it. First, we got to see the Nissan Leaf-sourced ZOE electric hatchback, then the Alpine A110-50 in all of its glory. So what else could the French automaker have up its sleeve for the Goodwood Festival of Speed that it is sponsoring?

We all know that Renault has been testing an all-new Clio in heavy camouflage and that very well may be the big surprise that we are all awaiting. The Clio is really no surprise though, as the spy shooters have spoiled that surprise, so Renault would be wise to just roll that new hatchback out without any big press.

Also, calling an underpowered compact hatchback a “big surprise” is just setting yourself up for failure. What we think is going on is that the Alpine A110-50 concept has finally been revised to a point that Renault thinks it’s reasonable enough to become a production model.

Everything is still up in the air and we are just speculating here, but to release the new Clio under the guise of a “big surprise” is simply a mistake and there has to be something else in the works. We won’t be surprised to see the new Clio at Goodwood, but not as the main attraction.

For now, we will just wait and see, but we really hope that this is going to end up being the announcement that the Alpine is going into production. We hope even more that this announcement will include the words “in U.S. dealerships” too, which is a virtual impossibility.

We’ll keep you updated as more information becomes available, as we approach the June 28th kick off of the Goodwood FOS.

Source: Carscoop