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While buyers in the United States are usually spoilt for choice in most areas, Europe has still kept some of its finest car brands out of reach — and among enthusiasts, Alpine sits right near the top of that wish list. That is set to change before too long, as the marque is preparing to enter North American markets. Even so, do not expect Alpine models to fill every Starbucks car park: in a recent conversation with British publication Autocar, Alpine CEO Philippe Krief outlined more of the company’s expansion plan, and it appears the brand is not targeting massive sales volumes.

The Alpine marque has been an important name in the sports car world since the A110 returned in 2017. Buyers in the U.S. have been eagerly waiting for the car to arrive in America ever since, but that was never going to happen with the current version because of regulatory hurdles. It is already known that the next-generation A110 is eventually planned for the U.S. market, although that is unlikely to happen before around 2030.

Krief said in the interview that Alpine will need a fifth and sixth model in addition to the A110 coupe and 2+2, the A390 SUV, and the A290 hatchback that are already part of the plan. However, one of those should not be expected to be the large U.S.-focused SUV that had been rumoured earlier, as the company has decided to drop that idea for now. Still, even with a six-model range, Alpine does not intend to pursue very high volumes.

Krief told the publication that Alpine wants to operate more like Ferrari than Porsche when it comes to sales. Admittedly, that leaves a very wide gap to bridge; Maranello builds fewer than 15,000 cars a year, while Stuttgart produces around 300,000 annually. According to Krief, the latter strategy eventually damages a product’s exclusivity.

“We are not Ferrari, of course, and we are not aiming to be Porsche. We aim to be more niche than Porsche,” Krief told Autocar. “We want to preserve the exclusivity and the profitability for our models.”

Considering that the U.S. accounts for nearly half of global sports car sales each year, bringing the A110 to American shores appears to be a sensible financial move. Whether the brand truly needs to worry about protecting exclusivity in the U.S. is a separate debate altogether. Sports cars are already fairly niche products, and persuading customers to move away from their established preferred brands will be a challenge in itself.