Beware Of The Crocodile: When Lacoste And Alpine Turn French Sporting Legends Into A Rally Masterpiece

The year is 1933. On the immaculate lawns of European tennis, the great René Lacoste has already conquered the game that made him a national hero. 

Now serving as the non-playing captain of France’s Davis Cup team, he watches over compatriots Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon with the same quiet precision that once defined his own play. 

Yet, his greatest victory would arrive not with a racquet, but with a needle and thread.

Together with André Gillier, Lacoste founded an apparel company that would forever change sporting elegance. Their revolutionary short-sleeved petit piqué polo, embroidered with an audacious crocodile instead of hiding its maker’s mark, rewrote the dress code of tennis. 

What began as practical athletic wear quickly evolved into one of fashion’s most enduring symbols, transforming Lacoste from a sporting goods company into an international French luxury lifestyle maison whose unmistakable crocodile came to embody resilience, refinement and uncompromising sporting spirit.

Across France, another visionary was quietly carving his own legend.

Armed with an HEC diploma, Jean Rédélé became France’s youngest Renault dealer, opening his modest dealership in Dieppe. But commerce alone never satisfied his restless imagination. Believing the humble Renault 4CV possessed untapped competitive potential, he entered the Dieppe-Rouen Rally in 1950—and won. 

A disappointing Monte Carlo Rally only sharpened his resolve. Instead, he found glory in the unforgiving French Alps, where successive victories inspired the name that would define his life’s work.

Alpine was born in 1955.

Its first production model, the A106, signalled the arrival of a marque obsessed with one philosophy above all else: supreme performance through intelligent lightness. 

The decades that followed cemented Alpine’s place in motorsport folklore. European Rally Champion in 1971. The inaugural World Rally Champion in 1973, defeating giants including Fiat and Ford. More recently, the reborn Alpine A110, unveiled in 2017, reminded enthusiasts that exhilarating driving need not rely on brute force, but on precision, agility and exquisite French savoir-faire.

Today, nearly a century after René Lacoste stitched a crocodile onto a polo shirt and more than seventy years after Jean Rédélé chased victory through Alpine mountain roads, these two French icons meet in spectacular fashion.

The result is Beware of the Crocodile – Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye.

Far from being another fashionable branding exercise, this extraordinary one-off begins with the most uncompromising foundation imaginable: Alpine’s A290 Rallye customer competition car. 

Rather than merely decorating an existing vehicle, Lacoste and Alpine chose to build upon genuine motorsport engineering, allowing design and performance to evolve together.

Its architecture is unapologetically competition-bred.

An optimised chassis engineered for exceptional rigidity and precision forms its backbone. Widened tracks improve grip and stability, while rally-specific suspension, reinforced braking systems, exposed carbon-fibre components, pronounced wheel arches, roof air intake, oversized rear spoiler and dramatic diffuser transform the compact electric hatchback into an uncompromising rally machine. 

Alpine’s specially calibrated electric powertrain delivers instantaneous acceleration from the first throttle input, supported by dedicated electronic systems that maintain consistent performance under demanding rally conditions.

Yet technical brilliance tells only half the story.

Inspired by the crimson tongue of Lacoste’s famous crocodile, the designers created an interior unlike anything currently on the road. Opening the door feels almost theatrical. The cabin immerses occupants in an intense monochromatic red environment, as though they have stepped directly inside the crocodile’s mouth. Every journey becomes sensory theatre, heightening anticipation before the first corner is even approached.

The contrast between technical precision and tactile luxury is masterfully judged. Structural components receive vivid red anodised treatments, while rally seats incorporate advanced 3D-printed lattice structures developed by ERPRO, balancing lightness, comfort and strength. Lacoste’s signature petit piqué fabric dresses the seats and door panels, embroidered by Potencier—the historic atelier responsible for crafting the maison’s celebrated crocodile emblems.

Everywhere one looks, subtle reptiles emerge.

A crocodile silently stalks the rear cabin. Shared Alpine-Lacoste logos appear as elegant bas-relief details. Remarkably, 290 hidden crocodiles are integrated throughout the car, rewarding curious owners with delightful discoveries long after first delivery. It is storytelling through industrial design, executed with rare wit and restraint.

Echoing the car’s philosophy is an equally desirable capsule collection.

Polos, technical outerwear, T-shirts and accessories effortlessly merge the visual languages of the tennis court and the rally stage. Performance fabrics meet understated French elegance, creating garments equally at home in a grandstand paddock or a Parisian boulevard. Rather than chasing fleeting trends, the collection celebrates movement itself—precise, effortless and undeniably stylish.

“Lacoste and Alpine share the same culture of innovation, shaped since their origins by pioneers convinced that performance is born as much from ingenuity as from mastery of detail. By bringing together our respective legacies, expertise and creative standards, we have imagined a project that celebrates French ingenuity through a shared vision of performance and elegance,” says Eric Vallat, CEO of Lacoste.

That philosophy resonates throughout every surface of this remarkable collaboration.

As Antony Villain, VP Design Alpine, eloquently explains: “The Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye embodies the meeting of two French brands that share the same taste for movement, precision and boldness. In the spirit of Jean Rédélé and René Lacoste, two passionate individuals who became references in their fields, Alpine and Lacoste celebrate a form of performance that goes beyond speed. This collaboration blends the technicality of competition, the lightness of design and the elegance of timeless style. A car designed for the track, but with a true aesthetic signature.”

Perhaps that is what makes Beware of the Crocodile so compelling.

It is not simply about fashion borrowing credibility from motorsport, nor about an automaker chasing lifestyle cachet. Instead, it reunites two French pioneers who have spent generations pursuing precisely the same ideal: reducing excess, refining purpose and proving that true performance is always inseparable from elegance.

Some collaborations generate headlines.

This one creates heritage.

And like every object destined for future collector status, it arrives with an unmistakable warning hidden in plain sight: beware of the crocodile—because once it captures your imagination, letting go becomes almost impossible.

The Beware of the Crocodile – Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye capsule collection is available now in all Lacoste boutiques worldwide and online. 

*Photos courtesy of Lacoste.