T

he Caterham Group, a UK-based automotive company owned by AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes, has announced a joint venture with French car manufacturer Renault to develop new sports cars by reviving the latter’s old company.

Caterham will acquire 50 percent of defunct Automobiles Alpine Renault company, currently wholly owned by Renault. After the acquisition, slated to take place in January 2013, Automobile Alpine will be renamed Société des Automobiles Alpine Caterham, the new joint venture firm. Bernard Ollivier, Renault transformation VP, has been appointed to manage the firm.

The new sports cars, under the brand name Caterham and Alpine, will be produced at the Alpine plant in Dieppe, Normandy, and will be offered for sale in 2015, Caterham Group chairman Tony Fernandes said in Paris on Monday.

“Renault and us aim at providing affordable luxury sports cars for people because not that many people can afford cars like Ferrari and McLaren,” Fernandes said.

He added that Caterham chose to cooperate with Renault because of its experience with Formula 1. Caterham’s Formula 1 Team currently uses engines made by Renault.

Asia and Europe will be the first marketing regions for the sports cars, according to Fernandes. The engineering process will be carried out jointly by Caterham and Renault, but marketing will be done separately by each company.

Fernandes declined to reveal how much his group paid for the joint venture, the targeted production volumes or the cars’ prices. Besides sports cars, the new firm will also venture into city cars and SUV crossovers in the future, Fernandes said.

According to Caterham vice president Dato Kamarudin Meranun, the group’s car division will oversee the joint venture. The company runs four business divisions at the moment: Caterham Cars, Caterham F1 Team, Caterham Technology and Innovation (CTI) and Caterham Composites.

Caterham Cars manufactures sports cars and is best known for its Seven products. CTI assists Caterham Cars in its productions and Caterham Composites runs projects for external companies in the automotive and aerospace sectors.

Meanwhile, the Automobiles Alpine Renault company was established in 1955 and produced a line of road and racing cars. It sold 30,000 road sports cars, with A110 being its most popular product during its existence.

Renault chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn said the joint venture would create more jobs in the region, since some of the work would be subcontracted to local businesses.

“We cannot talk about detailed figures at the moment because the economic situation is quite tricky. We will just remain prudent for now,” he said.