Renault Clio Cup: Spotted
You could get your teenage hotshoe in a new Clio, or you could teach them the old ways in this one...
Yes, it really is a quarter of a century since the Clio took on the 5's door bashing baton for Renault supermini racing. Furthermore, it's only when you compare a car like this 1993 Clio Cup with the current car that you realise how much progress has been made in that time. What was a stripped out road car is now a small touring car, and the full Clio Cup series is effectively an audition for a BTCC drive. It's a much more serious championship.
Whereas it's hard to be serious around this Clio, because it just looks hilariously good fun. Where to start? It sits fantastically on its Speedline wheels, important things are clipped down like a proper racing car and interior is brilliant - look at that steering wheel! There's even a passenger seat for scaring your friends.
A couple of interesting additional points too. It's a manual car as the early Cups were - look how perfectly set those pedals appear as well - and it's a road legal version. You can read in the advert about how it's the only one to be road registered from new (in Portugal), but it's also MOTed and set for a life in England.
Imagine how much of a giggle that would be. A B-road rocket par excellence that could probably hold its head up high at a track too. Sure, it won't have the straight line pace of a 21st century hot hatch - best avoid Thruxton then - but with a kerbweight of 900kg, sticky tyres and a competition history, it's begging to be thrown around somewhere like Anglesey or Brands Hatch. Look at it on three wheels!
Best of all, £10,000 doesn't look all that much in the context of a Williams being up for sale at similar money. Alright, so the race car will have led a slightly tougher life, but then that means you won't have to feel guilty about doing the same. Plus, as is always the way with lightweight track cars, it should prove fairly easy on consumables. No excuse not to be flat out then.
It's a shame that there aren't more for sale really, as emulating this race from Spa in 1993 looks rather entertaining. And expensive. But even with just one, it's hard to see how you could combine as much road fun, circuit thrills and competition provenance in less than £10,000. See you on track!
See perhaps the best Clio Cup race here.
RENAULT CLIO CUP
Engine: 1,763cc 4-cyl
Transmission: 5-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 139@6,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 119@4,250rpm
MPG: N/A
CO2: It was the 90s
First registered: 1993
Recorded mileage: 59,000
Price new: N/A
Yours for: £9,995
See the original advert here.
[Specs for a standard road car from Carfolio]
I love that white/blue car. Either he's forgetting he's not rallying and using the handbrake or could use some brake balance tuning! Very entertaining. You can see why Renault sport endorsed this kind of series, they'd have made a mint out of that race alone!
Suspension was a bespoke set of de Carbon shocks front and rear and stiffer springs - I forget the rear axle set-up.......The cars ran on slicks and generally had a surfeit of grip over power, which led to amazingly tight racing.
The cars are every bit as light and fragile as they appear but are an absolute riot to drive. Amazingly they ran with quite a lot of the plastic interior still in place (door cards, interior boot trim and quarter panels). The cage was a fairly rudimentary bolt-in job made by Devil.
I used to own and race a 1990 (first year of the series) UK Clio Cup in the Trackday Trophy series. The engine had been built by Brookes Motorsport and it was a screamer running on carbs rather than factory F.I. We discovered it had no rev limiter when it was put on the dyno for pre-season power testing. The tester was meant to keep his foot in until the limiter cut in, only it didn't on our car and ended up being taken over 9,000 rpm where it was still making power ! Amazingly this had no detrimental effect as proven by a precautionary strip-down. Lesson learnt !!!!
Over a period of time we upgrade the car with Wilwood brakes, modified rear beam, remote reservoir AST shocks, various bits of aero and other stuff, stripped lots more weight, and ended up with a car weighing just over 800kg with over 160bhp. It didn't do much below 5k rpm but really flew once in the power band. We were blighted with many of the weak parts from the factory cars - gearboxes made of cheese, crap clutches and the general tiredness of cheap components that were over 20 years old.
The common upgrade is to drop in the 2l Williams lump, but there's something quite fun about a buzzy 1.8 that you need to wring out !
Suspension was a bespoke set of de Carbon shocks front and rear and stiffer springs - I forget the rear axle set-up.......The cars ran on slicks and generally had a surfeit of grip over power, which led to amazingly tight racing.
The cars are every bit as light and fragile as they appear but are an absolute riot to drive. Amazingly they ran with quite a lot of the plastic interior still in place (door cards, interior boot trim and quarter panels). The cage was a fairly rudimentary bolt-in job made by Devil.
I used to own and race a 1990 (first year of the series) UK Clio Cup in the Trackday Trophy series. The engine had been built by Brookes Motorsport and it was a screamer running on carbs rather than factory F.I. We discovered it had no rev limiter when it was put on the dyno for pre-season power testing. The tester was meant to keep his foot in until the limiter cut in, only it didn't on our car and ended up being taken over 9,000 rpm where it was still making power ! Amazingly this had no detrimental effect as proven by a precautionary strip-down. Lesson learnt !!!!
Over a period of time we upgrade the car with Wilwood brakes, modified rear beam, remote reservoir AST shocks, various bits of aero and other stuff, stripped lots more weight, and ended up with a car weighing just over 800kg with over 160bhp. It didn't do much below 5k rpm but really flew once in the power band. We were blighted with many of the weak parts from the factory cars - gearboxes made of cheese, crap clutches and the general tiredness of cheap components that were over 20 years old.
The common upgrade is to drop in the 2l Williams lump, but there's something quite fun about a buzzy 1.8 that you need to wring out !
You won't lose anything on this if you keep it for a few years and don't rack up the miles.
I haven't looked at prices for these for a while - they don't come up for sale very often, but three or four years ago £5-£6k was top money.
Definitely fun little cars and a great way to learn about FWD chassis dynamics. They respond well to some modern updating, and with suitable budget (say c.£3k) can put out over 200bhp and really haul ! Though at that level you'd probably want to replace every single component in the gearbox, suspension and braking systems !
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