I found a strange photo earlier in one of my Alpine books of an A310 prototype—-which made me start searching online for more prototype photos.
The A310 was introduced in 1971 as glorified successor to the Alpine throne, and by 1976 Alpine introduced the car with a 2.7L V6. The car pictured here is a A310 V6 prototype which has seemingly been preserved!
What’s most striking here though, is the Maserati Merak-aping rear end! Was this a disguise for testing purposes or was this really being planned at some point? Even as a die-hard Alpine fanatic, i would think this is outright plagiarism! Obviously the design never actually made it anywhere, as the A110 production continued to 1984 with the design virtually unchanged, aside from body kits, wheel designs, and small tweaks. Maybe this was just an ‘inside joke’ inside Dieppe!
a comparison of a Merak vs. this A310 V6 prototype. HA!
src: Far
IEDEI 
god is that ugly. I so much prefer the actual A310!
I don’t think it is ugly….even in this weird form….better looking than a Merak IMO!
I wouldn’t say this is ugly , but I sure as ____ wouldn’t say its better looking than the Merak either . Meraks in their good colors are little stunners .This thing though is more a badly executed pastiche between the 310 and a Merak . Not ugly …. but not good
the Merak is a very blah looking design in my humblest opinion. Unusually, a car which looks better in photos than it does in person. I’ve been around and have seen many over the years; and i’ve never found myself saying “i’m digging that car”….it’s always just “blahblah supercar from the 70s blahblah”…..
Hard to say which egg came first, the A310 or Merak? Production versions were within a year of each other…
Alpine collaborated with several Italian supercar manufacturers. For Alpines for the Italian market were built at Masarati and Alfa Romeo. The drawings for this prototype existed in 1970 as a replacement for the A110, the A310 4 cyl. They were then dismissed as futuristic. The designs were used again in 1975-76 for the A310 V6. This is one of the few remaining prototypes of the A310 V6, which is located in Belgium at a major collector of Alpines.