There are exactly 290 crocodiles on the Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye. Three of them are swimming in a pool of red resin on the hood. One oversized translucent beast snarls its way across the rear spoiler. Dozens more, in varying sizes, are plastered across the dashboard like trophies from a fever dream.
This is what happens when two iconic French brands — one that makes performance cars, one that makes polo shirts — decide subtlety is for other countries.
The one-off creation, revealed last week and officially named “Beware of the Crocodile,” starts with Alpine’s A290 electric hot hatch and strips away nearly every visual cue that made the original car recognizable. The headlights are gone, replaced by body-colored panels with a single red LED slash. The rear window has been removed entirely to make room for that massive translucent crocodile crawling onto the spoiler.
Even the roof sprouts a small white fin meant to evoke a croc’s scaly back breaking the surface of the water. The exterior wears matte bluish-white paint over redesigned bumpers wrapped in forged carbon fiber. Clean white aerodisc wheels complete the look.
Debossed Lacoste branding sits on the front panel, and the rally lights swap the production car’s X-shaped motif for dueling Alpine and Lacoste logos. It is, without question, the most aggressively branded hot hatch ever built.
Inside, the collaboration goes from playful to unhinged. The entire cabin is drenched in red — seats, doors, dashboard, steering wheel — designed so the driver feels like they’re climbing into a crocodile’s mouth. Alpine’s words, not mine.
The racing buckets use 3-D-printed latticework, while seat pads and door panels are upholstered in the same fabric Lacoste uses for its clothing. A green stripe sits at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel, the lone nod to the brand’s signature color in a sea of crimson.
Car-and-clothing collaborations have become a reliable content play for automakers chasing lifestyle credibility. Ford has the Bronco Filson Edition coming next year. BMW slapped Kith branding on the XM. Mini paired with Deus Ex Machina on a pair of concepts.
The formula is familiar: take an existing model, add premium materials and co-branded badges, generate social media impressions, move on. Alpine and Lacoste didn’t follow that formula. They detonated it.
This isn’t a trim package with a logo swap. It’s a rolling art installation that happens to be based on a 215-horsepower electric hatchback most Americans can’t even buy.
That’s the peculiar thing about this collaboration. The A290 itself remains unavailable in the United States, though recent crash-test activity has hinted at a possible stateside launch for Alpine’s other model, the A110. So the wildest hot hatch collaboration in recent memory exists in a market where Alpine is still largely unknown outside of Formula 1 paddocks and enthusiast forums.
None of that diminishes the sheer audacity of the execution. You can argue 290 crocodiles is excessive. You’d be right. But in a segment where every manufacturer is desperately trying to prove electric cars can have personality, Alpine just showed up with a reptile infestation and dared anyone to look away.
Whether this kind of spectacle translates into actual brand heat for Alpine — or just generates a week of Instagram engagement before disappearing — depends entirely on what comes next. A crocodile on the hood is memorable. A car in the showroom is what counts.
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