My flatmate and I both have Valvers and a healthy interest in cars.
He had a 1.2 16v as a courtesy car while the "real" 16v was in for a new steering column. So what did we do with it?...we ragged it of course! I think my opinions therefore should be pretty bias free.
Off the mark its fine for a 1.2. I dont disbelieve for a moment that its less than 13secs, but even one second difference to 60 is still a car length or two. I do think that the smaller engined cars are geared for "nippy" driving around town. So if you only race cars to 40mph you wont do that badly, but dont think the acceleration will keep on coming! On a 172/16v/Willy, 1st takes you to nearly 40mph, whereas it was more like 27mph in this 1.2 16v. That also means that overtaking can be a bit hit-and-miss as well - doing the speed is no problem, the handling will cope, but overtaking on an A-road felt a bit of a problem. Not that thats a bad thing, and I guess for many people the 1.2 will be a fast car in their books. Just like a 16v/Willy/172 and so on will be slow for another driver.
The handling was fair too. Another mate has a 1.6 Golf Mk4 and that is truly sh*te - you can feel the high profile tyres really struggling for grip. But the little Clio was quite nice: safe really. Wasnt going to break away all of a sudden mid-corner and it didnt respond like say a 205 GTi to mid bend accelerator control (but then it wouldnt with 75bhp anyway!).
Overall a nice little motor - and a wicked off the peg semi-sporty car in Dynamique trim. I think Ill be getting a 1.5 Dci at some stage.