Coming soon to IN4RIDE is the report on the new Renault Megane RS. Good car, lovely colour schemes and nice tools, a fine car all-round. Once you’ve read the report by Thami, do yourself a favour and focus more on a somewhat lesser shadow being cast by its little sibling - the Renault Clio RS.
Renault is celebrating 20 years of Clio and as is the case, a special edition has appeared in the form of the Clio RS 20th Edition. Variation to the standard Clio RS, itself a little monster, extends further than the blackened roof, 20th anniversary decals and limited numbers it is brought in. This Clio 20th is hooked up to the Cup suspension last seen on these shores in the equally rare and limited Clio R27 of the previous generation. It may lack the sheer straight line blast of the Megane RS but in true racing fashion, introduce more than a few tight bends in the mix of a road and the Clio star brightens.
The Cup suspension is invariably setup to mimic all the attributes of race situations. And it does, incredibly so that purveyors of B-road driving are likely to whet their grip-n-go appetites marvellously and satisfactorily. It’s stiffer than the regular Clio so mind that factor if you are to purchase the car purely for its aesthetic quality. The conditions in the sleepy but scenic town of George provided the perfect playground for the Clio RS 20th and as luck would have it, a brace of Megane RS were on its tail. Once having cleared the straight-roads, the roads become a spaghetti bowl of mountain pass nirvana and with the car we’ve come to christen ‘EL-NINA’ on our paws, the raging Meganes and their portly behinds were up for a good fight.
Press on towards a hair-pin or a bend of any variety, time your braking well and guide the Clio in and 99 times out of hundred, the nose sits impeccably in line as if on rails. Not even the advent of understeer is present at fast-to-hyper entry. It’s only the foolishly exuberant who are likely to get the nose wildly out and even if that be the case, it’s a matter of lifting off the throttle to get it back in line. Its naturally-aspirated 2.0-litre 16V engine that produces 147,5 kW of power at 7100rpm and 215Nm of torque at 5400rpm is linked to a 6-speed manual transmission. It’s a car that invites you to drive it like ye stole it, so go ahead, grab it by the scuff of the neck and shake at will. The rewards are sprint times from 0-100 km/h of 6.9 sec, a top speed of 225 km/h and some broken egos behind you.
Admittedly the engine figures quoted are meek compared to the status quo of the quintessential hatchback but consider that it’s essentially a B-segment car that peers with the Toyota Yaris and Suzuki Swifts of this world yet, it holds its ‘little’ own in the company of bigger, faster, fatter hatchbacks such as its Megane RS brother. Buy only if you get kicks out of genuine sporting control, outrageous driving fun, dark-horse personality profiles and the need to save on more than a few thousands on something of pedigree, better looking and thunderously quick on mountain-passes.
STORY BY PHUTI MPYANE OF KMR MEDIA
