Renault and British manufacturer Caterham will jointly produce a new line of sports cars that will incorporate “the DNA of the Alpine,” an iconic Renault model.

Caterham is to acquire 50 percent of Renault’s sports car division Automobile Alpine Renault and together the manufacturers would create the Societe des Automobile Alpine Caterham in January 2013, a statement said.

That company would produce “its own vehicles which will hit the market four years from now,” Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn told a press conference. They are to be built at a Renault factory in Dieppe, in northwestern France.

Renault had already floated plans to revive the classic style of the Alpine 110, which dominated sports car rallies up to the 1970s before it was discontinued.