PH Heroes: Clio Trophy
Lightweight French hatchback that showed less really is more, writes Tom Phillips
According to just about every doom-mongering 24-hour news service, the UK is in the throes of an obesity crisis. The nation’s waistlines are ballooning, we’ll all soon need to whir around on mobility scooters and will need a small crane to get us out of bed.
A far-fetched tabloid vision of a rotund dystopia this may be, but there is some substance to this overweight vision that we should really wake-up and take notice of.
The problem is one of high expectations: if we expect every consumer product to be exquisite, on-demand and economical, compromises have to be made. If you want your clothes to be stylish and affordable, exploitative sweatshops are required; if you want your dinner to be tasty and instantaneous, then large quantities of salt and saturated fat will be served up too.
This trend has extended to our cars, with most new metal pandering to demands for more toys, safety gear and superfluous trimmings. Our lifestyles make convenience the king, and everything from our bellies to our hot hatches will put on more than a few pounds.
But when did it all go wrong? When did we accept compromise for the sake of convenience?If the Clio Trophy is anything to go by, it’s not that long ago at all.
Limited to just 500 UK-only specials (plus a special consignment of 25 left-hookers for Switzerland, bizarrely enough), the £15,500 Trophy was the zenith of contemporary hot hatches and, refreshingly, compromise was not on the menu.
Only available in a delicious shade of Capsicum Red, the Trophy’s exterior gained the larger spoiler from the mid-engined, slightly nutty Clio V6. The look was completed with some tasty anthracite Speedline Turini wheels which shave 1.3 kilos per corner off the 182 Cup, on which the Trophy is based.
Under the bonnet, Renault wisely shied away from fiddling with the already-gutsy 2.0-litre 182 bhp engine. Instead, the focus was on making the car grip and corner like no other contemporary rival.
For this reason, the car sports a 10mm lower ride height, SACHS remote-reservoir dampers re-rated by +20% and +10%, and springs stiffened by 20% and 15% front and rear respectively. Renault also revised the geometry of the steering, and replaced the elastometric bump stops with hydraulic ones to dial out almost all traces of understeer and sharpen turn in response. Uprated front hub carriers were also included to deal with the higher cornering forces.
The sum of all of these rather cerebral upgrades saw no real gains over the headline performance figures of the standard 182 Cup. However, on a twisty B-road the extra compliance transmitted through the body-hugging Recaros and revised steering wheel are enough to show a clean pair of heels to pretty much everything, when in the right hands.
We sampled number 341, a two-owner car which has benefited from a couple of upgrades thanks to regular exercise on the track. An ITG Panel Air filter helps the motor breathe a little more freely, while Brembo High Carbon Discs, Ferodo DS2500 Pads and Goodridge Braided Brake Lines inspire more confidence after repeated hard stops. The rims are now shod with Yokohama Parada Spec-2s instead of the bespoke Michelin Exaltos, and provide a little extra friction in the dry, in exchange for a few involuntary clenching moments in the wet.
On the move at low speeds, the car is as benign as the student-friendly Clio Campus, with the only nod to performance being the very firm ride: if you are sporting anything approaching love handles, be prepared to have your jowls jangled.
What would be transmitted though the cabin as belligerent lumps and bumps at a dawdle are flattened once the car and dampers are fully up to speed - the fact that the car was honed on the Great British B-road really shining through. When attacking even the most scarred patchwork of tarmac, the dampers keep wheels in touch with the road so that nothing but pure acceleration or braking affects the Trophy’s progress.
For a car that was launched to great acclaim just two years ago, I can’t help but feel that modern producers of seminal hot hatches - Renault, Peugeot, VW et al - have made grave mistakes by allowing consumers to get away with their demands for excessive additions. When lifestyles are geared towards convenience, the bloated bodies of the population are a by-product of the fact that the customer doesn’t always know best.
Instead of worrying about sat nav, whether you can plug your iPod into the stereo or redundant diffusers, take a look at the Trophy: it’ll take you to the shops to buy all your heart desires; it’ll squeeze in four adults for a short journey; it’ll do everything that any other car can do. But best of all, you can point the bonnet at a blinding B-road and it’ll remind you of what really matters.
PH Hero Rating: 8/10
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It's not an indication that it's an optimum time to shift up
However, my wifes car was off the road for 5 whole months for a new wiring loom that had to be specially made, the level of incompetence from Renault was flabberghasting. Since then things have been going on the blink lots and it has spent numerous more weeks in and out of the dealers. The latest was a valve spring failure. Not very good for a 2 year old car with 25,000 miles.
Keep reading loads of great things about the trophy, and they are true when it actually works....BUT ours has been utter sh*te!!!!!!
Bob.
An amazing car. No mention of the fact you need to look like this to get comfortable in one though:
I think the the Cliosports 1*2 maybe the last back to basic hothatches we'll see but thats not to say you cant make todays modern hothatches raw and perform just as well it just means you cant get them out of the dealership that way. And lets face it if your serious about taking it to the track or fast road use you'll mod it anyway?
I think the the Cliosports 1*2 maybe the last back to basic hothatches we'll see but thats not to say you cant make todays modern hothatches raw and perform just as well it just means you cant get them out of the dealership that way. And lets face it if your serious about taking it to the track or fast road use you'll mod it anyway?
Each to their own though.
However a proper Type R is different kettle of fish
I think the the Cliosports 1*2 maybe the last back to basic hothatches we'll see but thats not to say you cant make todays modern hothatches raw and perform just as well it just means you cant get them out of the dealership that way. And lets face it if your serious about taking it to the track or fast road use you'll mod it anyway?
Heard people raving on about these, but are they actually any good?
Ok, so they probably handle better then your run of the mill FWD shopping trolley, but is it actually good at handling? Is it as much fun on the twistys as say an elise or a scooby, while still having some pace unlike say an MX5?
Handling wise, my standard 182 had lots of grip and a very keen turn in, very nimble, and you could be a proper hooligan with it, but I have driven better handling cars. I'd imagine its better than any similar aged hot hatch though.
Heard people raving on about these, but are they actually any good?
Ok, so they probably handle better then your run of the mill FWD shopping trolley, but is it actually good at handling?
As it's not like it's been placed that high for its immense straight line performance, unreal amounts of outright grip, its evocative looks or the sense of occasion when sitting in it
which leaves, erm, the fact that it handles, sort of...However, my wifes car was off the road for 5 whole months for a new wiring loom that had to be specially made, the level of incompetence from Renault was flabberghasting. Since then things have been going on the blink lots and it has spent numerous more weeks in and out of the dealers. The latest was a valve spring failure. Not very good for a 2 year old car with 25,000 miles.
Keep reading loads of great things about the trophy, and they are true when it actually works....BUT ours has been utter sh*te!!!!!!
Bob.
From my experience, most of the dealers simply haven't got a clue, most of the people i've had to deal with wouldn't know how to wipe their own arse.
At one point I spent 8 months waiting for them to replace my cars steering rack, in the end it was parked up for 6 weeks because they told me it wasn't safe to drive.
On another occassion it broke down 2hrs after a service because someone couldn't be bothered to plug all the HT leads back in again. Don't worry Renault, I spent 2hrs parked on a cold wet dual carriageway that night, bunch of f
useless wrs. If Renault gave their dealers a good kicking and stamped out this sort of incompetance they would be unstoppable. I'm sure it puts off a great deal of potential buyers, it certainly put me off the Trophy and much as i'd like to spend £20k on a new Megane R26, it'll probably be VW or Subaru who get my cash this time.
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