Williams Clio

[nikaiyo2]

I have always fancied one since I was about 16, for £3-5K seems daft not to get one... What downsides are there to ownership? Anyone still keep one as a daily driver?

[GTIAlex]

As with anything of that age, if you've got the budget in hand for when/if it goes wrong then go for it

Even if you only keep it for a little while, if you buy the right one, you wont lose out.

[vx220]

IIRC they rust badly, certainly worse than an equivalent 205 GTI

[Tickle]

A guy did an extensive thread on one in readers cars: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=1&a...

Seems like you just need to keep on top of the jobs albeit a lot of them!

IIRC EVO have one as a long termer too.
http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/evolongtermtests/2...

I like the idea of having one but they do seem a little fragile.

[16v_paddy]

The only real issue with them imo is wear & tear, even low mileage examples have got parts that are 20+ years old fitted to them so that's the main thing to bear in mind. Anything made out of rubber will be what causes grief mostly because of age.

The rust is the biggest issue with them, on the rear arches & sills but the ones that have suffered with that have either been repaired or scrapped. There's hardly any stters out there and with the values going up & up, more of them seem to be getting repaired and looked after properly instead of being killed. It's because of the values I've now got 1 to restore & sell on, admittedly it needs a fair bit of work but I've been messing about with the 1.8 16v's for years, which are virtually identical, so the issues with them aren't so daunting.

There's a wealth of information available on them if you go to the forums of williamsclio.co.uk and clio16valver.co.uk