Renault and Caterham joint venture for new sports car brand

British sports car company Caterham have linked up with French car manufacturer Renault in a new joint venture company, Societe des Automobiles Alpine Caterham, founded to build cars in the Renault Alpine factory in Northern France. The main aim within the next few years, is to design and build a new and exciting sports car brand .

New Caterham Renault alliance to yield new sports car model

Caterham Group chairman and all round social entrepreneur Tony Fernandes said the alliance should help transform Caterham from a "well respected niche brand into a serious player on the motoring map. Our F1 team has already been working successfully with Renault Sport F1 since the start of the 2011 F1 season, and I am thrilled that now we are adding to our track partnership by joining forces with Renault on the road." Caterham F1 who have the majority of their car built using Renault parts recently equalled their best placed finish in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday with driver Heikki Kovalainen finishing in an impressive 13th place.

Fernandes believes success such as this is a potential pringboard into the manufacturing market, as he explained "Formula 1 was always our entry point into the car business,"said Caterham Group owner.

For the past two F1 seasons the team has raced under the Lotus name after the group obtained a license to use the Lotus brand name.

"Our original plans to develop a partnership with Lotus were put aside in spectacular and well-documented style."

After such problems Mr Fernandes then purchased Caterham Cars and renamed the team Caterham F1 Formula One. In complete coincidence Renault have teamed up with Lotus forming a new team known as Lotus Renault of in which Renault supply the engine amongst other technical features. Lotus Renault who also achieved their best finish in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with driver Kimi Raikkonen achieving the teams first race win.

Renault chief Mr Ghosn has a reputation for expanding the brand and production by creating engineering partnerships with other motor companies rather than starting his own. Past deals with Nissan and Dieter Zetsche who build cars for Mercedes and other brands such as SMART, have led to his rise within the company.
 

New Renault and Caterham Sports model for less than £35,000

 

Mr Ghosn has always maintained any partnership he enters has to be mutually beneficial and with Caterham Cars sharing the costs of developing and production both companies achieve their goals.

A recent report on autocar.co.uk suggests the possible first product of the alliance will be a two seater with an alloy chassis costing in a region of £35,000. With increased coverage of the rise in price of new production cars, this proposed cost of a new two seater alloy chassis sports car suggests a competitive price against similar cars in the market.