Not many cars possess the capacity to really cheese me off, which is probably a good thing. But the first mid-engined Renault Clio V6, launched 20 years ago, managed exactly that.
It was like finally scoring your dream date, sitting down to dinner in a posh restaurant and then watching them launch into a stout defence of Donald Trump while casually picking their nose. Because of the enormous disparity between how you imagined the encounter might progress and how it actually did, you end up far more disappointed with your evening than had you just stopped off at the local for a swift half with a tedious colleague.
It was all there: an extraordinary appearance and a mid-mounted 3.0-litre V6 developed by TWR, the same bunch of people who had won two of three previous Le Mans races for Jaguar. How could they make a mess of that? Somehow they managed it.
The car was grossly overweight and therefore little quicker in a straight line than the Clio 172 hatch. But the real problem was its handling, or rather its absence thereof. On the limit, it was probably the trickiest new road car I’ve come across, and that includes the Ferrari 348, which would at least let you slide it a bit before making Pininfarina-shaped holes in the nearest hedge. The Clio V6 wouldn’t even allow that. Its approach to corners went grip, grip, grip, grip, gone. And that was that. At the time, I described it as “at its absolute best when parked”.
Whether Renault was surprised by the resulting hail of criticism isn’t remembered, but it certainly moved fast to sort it out. The entire car was, in effect, redesigned in two years, with the result you see before you. The entire suspension set-up alone was all-new, with different springs, dampers and geometry, plus revised kinematics, bespoke tyres and – get this – even a longer wheelbase. The fact that it had a little more power and shorter gearing was really neither here nor there.
And guess what? This is still not a good car by any conventional definition. It’s still not very fast, the interior is still rubbish, the turning circle remains a joke, the steering feels rather odd and – I had forgotten this – the gearlever is about a foot further forward than you would either expect or desire.
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PS Leave off the politics, Andrew.
I'm not interested in whether you are a commie or raw meat eater.
Ah yes. I can still just about remember the days when Autocar wasn't afraid to say it didn't like the direction of travel in the car industry, or that a crap car was crap.
This is one example. And their assination of the Mark V Escort, which led to the appointment of Parry Jones and the creation of the Mondeo, was their finest hour.
Now there is nothing - just resignation to the evolution of cars from being things to love and lust after, to white goods.
Two distinct memories of the Clio V6
1 I was at autocar on work experience and I think we went to Windsor great park to take some photos. I remember revving it especially for some wide eyed little boy.
2 I was at the Nurburgring on a dank and misty May morning. As we joined the queue we saw a Clio V6 at the front, brave I thought, knowing its reputation. I think I was about 3 corners in when I came across the expected spun Clio!