2016 Renault Twingo GT first drive

Turn the key and the 0.9-litre engine fires into life with a distinctive offbeat three-cylinder thrum. It’s noticeably louder than the standard car thanks to a new twin-pipe sports exhaust, but it’s not as sonorous as the characterful triple found in the new 1.0-litre Fiesta ST-Line.

Plant your right foot, however, and the engine impresses with its new-found willingness to pull from lower revs. Thanks to shorter gear ratios and a revised turbocharger, the GT feels positively sprightly on Paris’s tight and technical inner-city streets, accelerating with far more urgency than the lesser engines in the range.

The engine's response isn’t perfect, though. Boost comes in quite abruptly at 2000rpm, and even if you’re higher up in the rev range, there's a noticeable delay before the engine starts producing usable power. Granted, this isn’t so much of a problem when driving on fast and flowing B-roads, but it can make smooth city driving a challenge when you are continually on and off the throttle.

Country roads highlight a different limitation in the form of poor body control. The boffins at Renault Sport may have made tweaks to improve the standard car’s chassis, but it’s certainly no Clio RS. Turn in to a relatively quick bend and the body pitches on its springs, taking a moment or two to settle before it shimmies its way out the other side. Throw in a mid-corner bump and the resultant instability can be enough to trigger the retuned ESP.

With Renault confirming earlier this year that a proper RS version is off the cards, the GT is the fastest, most driver-focused Twingo that’ll be offered. But should you buy one?

Well, we’d recommend thinking carefully about what you’d be passing up before you do. Yes, £13,795 isn’t an unreasonable sticker price for a lukewarm hatch with a sub-10.0sec 0-60mph time, but there’s precious little joy to be had from driving the GT quickly. And that, we’d argue, is the whole point.

We reckon you’d have more fun in the cheaper-to-buy, cheaper-to-insure VW Up 1.0 TSI 90. Or if you can stretch the budget by a grand or so, there’s the stellar Swift Sport or Ford Fiesta Ecoboost ST-Line. Both of those are bigger, faster and vastly more dynamically interesting.