Renaultsport Clio 200
Discussion
Hi all, first post on here although I've been lurking for a while. Thought I would do a quick thread on my ownership so far of my Clio.
I have owned the car for nearly 5 years (I think!) and it replaced a Mk5 Golf GTI. I fell in love with it on the test drive and knew I had to own it.
It all started with a relatively civilised standard car, somewhere around 20k on the clocks and 1 owner from new.
It all stared with a stainless exhaust system bought second hand and for a while i was happy to just drive it around. Then I added things like a cup spoiler as I felt it just needed something. My first track day was an evening at Bedford Autodrome which really got me hooked. This was followed by a week in Wales based around a certain triangle of roads and that helped me fall in love with the car even more.
This went on for quite a while until I did another trackday, at this point I decided I wanted to do more of this and the standard Recaros weren't particularly supportive as I'm not a small chap! So a couple of more track focused purchases were made.
This kept me happy for around 8 months until a rather rubbish trackday at Rockingham put me fight off the car and track days in general. A combination of being by far the slowest car on track and not being able to get into a rhythm. I was all up for selling until a had a week up in Scotland which made me realise just what a great car this is.
I decided after this trip to make it a bit of a 'clubsport' spec car, so I borrowed some inspiration from the R26.R and Trophy-R Meganes.
Then disaster! I was taken out on a roundabout on my way to work. Car was very quickly declared a financial write off. I spent several MK this trawling through the classifieds trying to work out what could replace it but due to the time of year and other cars holding value better than the Clio I wouldn't be able to replace it with anything I wanted too. I bought it back of the insurance company and set to work.
It started with just replacing the rear beam as I was still planning on finalising my dream of a track car that is equally at home as a fast road car. But after discussing what sort of mileage would be available to me on my now catagory N car I just couldn't justify it for one trip round Scotland per year!
This is when things started to get serious.
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/t6o8SbgC.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/jZZAQSLA" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/jZZAQSLA.jpg)
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/bAyiaq0M.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/rnvjuzZE" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/rnvjuzZE.jpg)
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/yXgPhs7w.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/0coIgSBH" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/0coIgSBH.jpg)
Now I will admit I have condensed this stage quite a bit but it shows you the direction the car has gone. The last few pics are from a track evening run by a particular magazine last month. I am also booked onto the September one and cannot wait to get the car back in its now natural habitat.
If you managed to get this far then thank you, the car is still a work in progress and there is still a long way to go with plans for it!
I have owned the car for nearly 5 years (I think!) and it replaced a Mk5 Golf GTI. I fell in love with it on the test drive and knew I had to own it.
It all started with a relatively civilised standard car, somewhere around 20k on the clocks and 1 owner from new.
It all stared with a stainless exhaust system bought second hand and for a while i was happy to just drive it around. Then I added things like a cup spoiler as I felt it just needed something. My first track day was an evening at Bedford Autodrome which really got me hooked. This was followed by a week in Wales based around a certain triangle of roads and that helped me fall in love with the car even more.
This went on for quite a while until I did another trackday, at this point I decided I wanted to do more of this and the standard Recaros weren't particularly supportive as I'm not a small chap! So a couple of more track focused purchases were made.
This kept me happy for around 8 months until a rather rubbish trackday at Rockingham put me fight off the car and track days in general. A combination of being by far the slowest car on track and not being able to get into a rhythm. I was all up for selling until a had a week up in Scotland which made me realise just what a great car this is.
I decided after this trip to make it a bit of a 'clubsport' spec car, so I borrowed some inspiration from the R26.R and Trophy-R Meganes.
Then disaster! I was taken out on a roundabout on my way to work. Car was very quickly declared a financial write off. I spent several MK this trawling through the classifieds trying to work out what could replace it but due to the time of year and other cars holding value better than the Clio I wouldn't be able to replace it with anything I wanted too. I bought it back of the insurance company and set to work.
It started with just replacing the rear beam as I was still planning on finalising my dream of a track car that is equally at home as a fast road car. But after discussing what sort of mileage would be available to me on my now catagory N car I just couldn't justify it for one trip round Scotland per year!
This is when things started to get serious.
Now I will admit I have condensed this stage quite a bit but it shows you the direction the car has gone. The last few pics are from a track evening run by a particular magazine last month. I am also booked onto the September one and cannot wait to get the car back in its now natural habitat.
If you managed to get this far then thank you, the car is still a work in progress and there is still a long way to go with plans for it!
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