I picked up my Clio 182 on Wednesday. I’d actually bought it just over a week previously, but it had a wee dent in the tailgate so it went straight from the auction to my bodyshop man. When I picked it up, he’d not only repaired the dent, but also been right over the car and remedied any other little blemishes he’d found, and given the whole thing a thorough polish all over, so it was looking absolutely as-new.
First impressions were very good – I’d seen the auction photos, and seen various 182s around on the road, but I’ve got to say, in the flesh, with the anthracite wheels, it really looked the business – aggressive four-square stance, nicely muscular arches and a just-right kit that filled out the body perfectly without being too in-your-face.
Initial impressions driving it, however, were not so favourable – the instruments are exactly the same as most poverty-spec Renaults, the driving position is very high, and the engine note could have been from any generic small capacity modern four-pot. On the upside, there’s a reasonable weight to the steering, clutch and brakes, and despite the traditionally French coke-tin-thickness body panels, everything was rattle and squeak-free. I suppose I’d been expecting something a bit rawer - like French hatches of old – with relatively heavy steering and low inertia, so they feel darty and challenging right from the off.
My first 20 miles or so were through south London rush-hour traffic, and the car felt, dare I say it, a bit dull. Aside from the beefier steering wheel, I could have been driving a stock 1.2. Even when I did get a gap of couple of hundred yards to pin the throttle flat to the floor, I wasn’t exactly blown away by the acceleration. I’ll grudgingly admit that it probably is making 175-180bhp at the very top of the rev-range, but it’s a fairly fleeting experience and, by god, does it make you work for it. Again, the engine note is coming into play as well here too, because its over-silenced style makes it sound like it’s resisting, rather than begging to be thrashed until the valves come flying through the bonnet.
I was beginning to think I’d made a bit of mistake, but the next day I had a bit more chance to get the car into its natural habitat – the b-road. The first couple of corners taken at an enthusiastic but still fairly cautious pace were dispensed with distain – the car just gripped, went and laughed at how easy it was. The steering really came alive too – very linear, retaining a nice weight, and extremely chatty on the subjects of road surface and available grip.
I progressively upped the pace and discovered that it takes a fair amount of bravery before you can even get close to finding the limits of grip, and even beyond those limits, the transition to momentum oversteer is relatively gentle and well-telegraphed. The power-band now started to make sense as well – I still find it a bit narrow, but coupled with a fairly accurate gearbox full of relatively closely spaced ratios, you can keep the revs right up where the power is, making sure to always keep a bit in reserve to pull you round the latter half of the corner if you’ve gone in a bit hot. That’s not to say it gives up the power easily, you’ve got to be right on it, constantly swapping cogs and giving the throttle a thoroughly unsympathetic stomping – pause for breath and the flow is broken: you’ve dropped out of the power and the car seems to relax again into a softer stance.
So the wee beasty is emerging as a bit of split personality – drive it at anything less than eight tenths and it responds with a classic Gallic shrug of indifference, but wind it up (and keep it wound up) and it gets right up on its toes, dances across the tarmac, and really goads you into seeing just how far you can push it.
Time to head for home – the 500-odd mile haul up the M6 back to Edinburgh. After the previous day’s fun, I’d suspected that the short box might be the car’s undoing at a steady fast cruise, but it wasn’t too bad. 100mph equals just over 4k rpm in top, so the engine sounds busy the whole time, but it’s generally less thrashy than other similarly sized hot hatches, and the sound-proofing is adequate to keep out the worst of the road and wind noise.
The big open motorways of north England and south Scotland really show up the car’s relative lack of power, as aerodynamics take over from weight as the primary determinant of acceleration, but I can’t really blame the car as its clearly way out of its element.
The 30-odd mile run from the motorway back to Edinburgh is one that’s pretty familiar to me, as it’s my chosen route whenever I’m heading south from home or vice-versa, and even though I’m feeling a bit tired after nearly seven uneventful hours of watching motorway grey-top disappearing under the bonnet, I’m right up for recapturing the magic of the previous day on the A702’s rich mixture of fast swoops and more technical corner combinations.
With a number of fast straights thrown into the mix, I’m not sure whether, given a clear run, the TVR would be faster over the entire length of the road. The Clio would certainly carry more speed through the tight stuff and the trickily cambered sections, and give you more confidence to take liberties, despite losing out by 40-50mph on the straighter sections – totally different experience but probably not that much difference in time.
Of course, a clear run at a 30 mile main route from Edinburgh to the M6 is the stuff of fantasises only, and in the real world frequency of overtaking opportunities will play the largest part in determining one’s overall pace. The little Clio did well, often being able to use its momentum to immediately dispatch slower traffic, but suffering more when the rhythm was broken by coming up to other cars without a clear view ahead. With the power so banded, it’s always not that easy to take advantage of sudden opportunities either, so there are clearly times when a more powerful car would have been able to shoot past while the Clio is forced to bide its time.
That said, despite my keenness to get home, I got to the other end of the road and felt like I wanted to go back and do it all again – it’s been a while since I’ve driven a car which served up so much fun in such a usable and relative low-fear way. Can’t wait to get it onto some quieter roads up north!
In short, it’s a really good modern hatch – simple, easy and friendly enough for your Gran to drive around town, but capable of really delivering some proper thrills when you ask a bit more from it. While another 50-odd bhp and a good extra slug of torque in the mid-range would improve it massively across all different types of driving, there’s something quite enjoyable about being made to work hard to get the car to deliver the goods, especially when that goes in tandem with the schizophrenic nature of the feel and handling.
First impressions were very good – I’d seen the auction photos, and seen various 182s around on the road, but I’ve got to say, in the flesh, with the anthracite wheels, it really looked the business – aggressive four-square stance, nicely muscular arches and a just-right kit that filled out the body perfectly without being too in-your-face.
Initial impressions driving it, however, were not so favourable – the instruments are exactly the same as most poverty-spec Renaults, the driving position is very high, and the engine note could have been from any generic small capacity modern four-pot. On the upside, there’s a reasonable weight to the steering, clutch and brakes, and despite the traditionally French coke-tin-thickness body panels, everything was rattle and squeak-free. I suppose I’d been expecting something a bit rawer - like French hatches of old – with relatively heavy steering and low inertia, so they feel darty and challenging right from the off.
My first 20 miles or so were through south London rush-hour traffic, and the car felt, dare I say it, a bit dull. Aside from the beefier steering wheel, I could have been driving a stock 1.2. Even when I did get a gap of couple of hundred yards to pin the throttle flat to the floor, I wasn’t exactly blown away by the acceleration. I’ll grudgingly admit that it probably is making 175-180bhp at the very top of the rev-range, but it’s a fairly fleeting experience and, by god, does it make you work for it. Again, the engine note is coming into play as well here too, because its over-silenced style makes it sound like it’s resisting, rather than begging to be thrashed until the valves come flying through the bonnet.
I was beginning to think I’d made a bit of mistake, but the next day I had a bit more chance to get the car into its natural habitat – the b-road. The first couple of corners taken at an enthusiastic but still fairly cautious pace were dispensed with distain – the car just gripped, went and laughed at how easy it was. The steering really came alive too – very linear, retaining a nice weight, and extremely chatty on the subjects of road surface and available grip.
I progressively upped the pace and discovered that it takes a fair amount of bravery before you can even get close to finding the limits of grip, and even beyond those limits, the transition to momentum oversteer is relatively gentle and well-telegraphed. The power-band now started to make sense as well – I still find it a bit narrow, but coupled with a fairly accurate gearbox full of relatively closely spaced ratios, you can keep the revs right up where the power is, making sure to always keep a bit in reserve to pull you round the latter half of the corner if you’ve gone in a bit hot. That’s not to say it gives up the power easily, you’ve got to be right on it, constantly swapping cogs and giving the throttle a thoroughly unsympathetic stomping – pause for breath and the flow is broken: you’ve dropped out of the power and the car seems to relax again into a softer stance.
So the wee beasty is emerging as a bit of split personality – drive it at anything less than eight tenths and it responds with a classic Gallic shrug of indifference, but wind it up (and keep it wound up) and it gets right up on its toes, dances across the tarmac, and really goads you into seeing just how far you can push it.
Time to head for home – the 500-odd mile haul up the M6 back to Edinburgh. After the previous day’s fun, I’d suspected that the short box might be the car’s undoing at a steady fast cruise, but it wasn’t too bad. 100mph equals just over 4k rpm in top, so the engine sounds busy the whole time, but it’s generally less thrashy than other similarly sized hot hatches, and the sound-proofing is adequate to keep out the worst of the road and wind noise.
The big open motorways of north England and south Scotland really show up the car’s relative lack of power, as aerodynamics take over from weight as the primary determinant of acceleration, but I can’t really blame the car as its clearly way out of its element.
The 30-odd mile run from the motorway back to Edinburgh is one that’s pretty familiar to me, as it’s my chosen route whenever I’m heading south from home or vice-versa, and even though I’m feeling a bit tired after nearly seven uneventful hours of watching motorway grey-top disappearing under the bonnet, I’m right up for recapturing the magic of the previous day on the A702’s rich mixture of fast swoops and more technical corner combinations.
With a number of fast straights thrown into the mix, I’m not sure whether, given a clear run, the TVR would be faster over the entire length of the road. The Clio would certainly carry more speed through the tight stuff and the trickily cambered sections, and give you more confidence to take liberties, despite losing out by 40-50mph on the straighter sections – totally different experience but probably not that much difference in time.
Of course, a clear run at a 30 mile main route from Edinburgh to the M6 is the stuff of fantasises only, and in the real world frequency of overtaking opportunities will play the largest part in determining one’s overall pace. The little Clio did well, often being able to use its momentum to immediately dispatch slower traffic, but suffering more when the rhythm was broken by coming up to other cars without a clear view ahead. With the power so banded, it’s always not that easy to take advantage of sudden opportunities either, so there are clearly times when a more powerful car would have been able to shoot past while the Clio is forced to bide its time.
That said, despite my keenness to get home, I got to the other end of the road and felt like I wanted to go back and do it all again – it’s been a while since I’ve driven a car which served up so much fun in such a usable and relative low-fear way. Can’t wait to get it onto some quieter roads up north!
In short, it’s a really good modern hatch – simple, easy and friendly enough for your Gran to drive around town, but capable of really delivering some proper thrills when you ask a bit more from it. While another 50-odd bhp and a good extra slug of torque in the mid-range would improve it massively across all different types of driving, there’s something quite enjoyable about being made to work hard to get the car to deliver the goods, especially when that goes in tandem with the schizophrenic nature of the feel and handling.
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wouldnt say it feels like a 1.2 though when hitting the loud pedal. Depends on which gear it is though
