Test Driven: The 2013 Renaultsport 200 Turbo

The latest RS Clio brings comfort to hot motoring with a dual-clutch automatic gearbox and two extra doors. But does this mean the new Renaultsport 200 Turbo lacks its predecessor’s ‘Va Va Voom’?

Climbing into the surprisingly well-finished cabin of the 200 Turbo, as you become surrounded by RS logos, red stitching and orange details, that sports-car style start button urges you to press it. You’re in the latest generation of hot Clio you see, a car that is part of a family widely regarded as reaching hot hatch perfection with its outgoing 200 Cup model. But this is the latest member and it approaches the market at a completely different angle, so the only way to find out if it can live up to its family’s name is to take it for a spin.

Sliding into the leather seats, you notice that Renaultsport finally have a car that offers a low and purposeful driving position. Thanks to a reach and rake adjustment, it’s easy to place the steering wheel exactly where you want it. But without a conventional gearstick to the left, you’re faced with two silver paddles behind the wheel, connecting fingertips to Renaultsport’s latest EDC semi-automatic transmission. It’s time to see if this semi-auto can really live up to the job.

Orange details and RS badges hint at sporting pedigree

Unfortunately, it can’t. Not at low speed anyway, as gear-changes are delayed and the gearbox unresponsive. Renault's suggestions are to toggle the gearbox back into full auto mode at this point, and this feels like your only choice because at low speed the manual shifts feel cumbersome. But when left to its own devices and allowed to make the decisions, the auto box does a perfectly good job at being an auto box. It feels slightly joltier than old autos, but perfectly fine to comfortably pull you to your destination. Added to the soft touch dash, piano black centre console and roomy interior, there’s little doubt that the 200 Turbo would be a pleasant and practical place to be on the daily commute.

But this being the Renaultsport model, it is more than likely that owners would want to occasionally leave the traffic jams and find an exciting road to sprint along. So when you do manage to venture onto a country road, you can happily click the gear lever into manual and press the RS button located just behind it, switching the car into ‘Sport’ mode. The dash’s Renaultsport changes into yellow, and then, then nothing. Until you touch the accelerator.

RS button engages 'Sport' mode

There’s no doubting it, this thing is fast. With a 0-62 time of just 6.7 seconds, this is the fastest production Clio to leave Dieppe since the 255bhp V6. And boy do you feel it, all 177lb-ft of torque seeming almost instantly available thanks to the 1.6-litre engine’s turbocharger, pushing you back into your seat with its 197bhp, forcing you to speed through the gears faster than you would expect. It’s here that the dual-clutch gearbox feels quick and purposeful, giving you the ability to maintain full focus on the road ahead and maximise steering inputs with both hands planted on the wheel. As you click through the six gears the engine’s momentum is maintained, meaning acceleration feels endless and harsh. Would you miss a gearstick at this point? Probably not.

It’s not until you approach something that requires you to stamp on the left pedal, the EDC gearbox’s ability to frantically rush down the gears still leaves you feeling like your left foot is a little wasted. The exhaust does let out a racing car like snort as it passes each cog, but it’s definitely not as satisfying as knowing your inputs have directly created this dirty orchestra. Nevertheless, when you open up the steering and press hard on the throttle it does become clear that without having to worry about shoving a stick back and forth, you can really commit to driving fast, utilising the cars e-diff to effectively drag you out of the corners.

Longer wheelbase enables greater stability

The Clio’s forced induction woosh is addictive too, whilst this model’s Cup suspension keeps everything planted and its electric steering, although lacking in natural feel, provides just about enough weight to enable precise inputs. Overall grip is phenomenal, with this car’s optional 18-inch alloys being wrapped in performance spec Dunlop Sport Maxx tyres, which bite well on the sun-heated tarmac in all the situations you can ‘legally’ throw at them. Sprint along British B-roads like this and the Clio will barely break sweat, and its lengthy 2,589mm wheelbase helps the chassis absorb the broken surfaces of Britain’s roads without too much upset either.

Of course with this being Britain the B-road will come to an end and you will arrive back in a queue of traffic. But before the car gets a chance to stumble on changes, you can easily flick the gearbox back into full auto and click the RS button back to select ‘Normal’ mode. Suddenly the car feels less urgent, quiet and fairly smooth again. To be honest it’s like an entirely different car. Renault claim that in this mode the car can achieve an impressive combined 44.8mpg, emitting as low as 144g of CO2/km. This means the 1.6-litre unit is far cheaper to tax than the old, dirtier, naturally aspirated Renaultsport’s, as well as requiring fewer trips to the petrol station; as long as you stay out of the boost zone that is.

Cheaper tax, lower emissions, but a less involving drive

The 200 Turbo is therefore a completely different animal to older generations. At speed it’s a real weapon; something that would be a force to be reckoned with on track. But on the road it is almost too effective, requiring its driver to push beyond what would be sane before offering any of that light movement and pointy front end its predecessors were famous for. In town it becomes comfortable, offering a less hot and more conventional hatchback experience that its siblings were never able to do. It therefore manages to shift away from being purely an enthusiast’s pocket-rocket, to a much wider market position of attracting those seeking affordable thrills without compromising practicality.

That’s not to say that people won’t like the cheaper tax, better fuel efficiency and increased cabin space, there’s no doubt that more people are interested in these things than out and out raw driving characteristics. The 2013 Renaultsport Clio would certainly be a mature choice for a buyer looking for practical thrills under £20,000, but unfortunately it probably can’t quite meet the expectations of more enthusiastic drivers. Even with its aggressive styling and race-style gearbox, the car lacks the overall involvement many drivers would have expected after driving the marque’s older cars. So despite the fact it is the quickest of the bunch, this car could be the first to see Renaultsport lose the hardcore hot hatch crown.

Specs

Engine turbocharged 1618cc, 4cyl, FWD

Gearbox EDC 6-speed, dual-clutch, semi-automatic

Power 197bhp

Torque 177lb-ft

CO2 144g/km

Top speed 143mph

0-62 mph 6.7secs

Combined mpg 44.8

Manufacturer’s OTR price £19,995 (for LUX model as tested here)

I've Just Seen Rush The Movie; And I Liked It

I know I'm not the only one who's been waiting all year for this film to come out. Rush is a movie that has promised to be everything; featuring a script good enough for the Hollywood masses, and adrenaline filled racing footage to satisfy the most hardcore F1 fans.

I'll be honest, despite being incredibly excited to see Ron Howard's take on one of F1's most exciting seasons, the closer it got to the film's release date, the more apprehensive I became about it turning into a typical Hollywood picture, destined to join the very long list of good, but not great films. Thankfully I was wrong...in part.

Don't worry, there won't be any spoilers in here as I'm not talking about the storyline, although you already know that right, since it actually happened? Well, most of it did, but this film does of course include some scenes to spice up the script. One scene in particular springs to mind: about halfway through the film, Hunt is shown to basically assualt a journalist, which I am not certain actually ever happened (although rumour seems to suggest it could have done). In the film however it seems the scene was added in order to emphasise the growing respect Hunt had for Lauda, as this journalist had been a little disrespectful to the Austrian earlier on, but it's a scene that doesn't really fit in to me.

But anyway, aside from that small questionnable part, the film is largely accurate. Hunt is the partying playboy, Lauda is the quiet, calculated racer. The script does a good job at portraying the drivers, and the footage of racing is effective at portraying the fast paced, adrenaline filled job these drivers had. 

One thing I will say is the motorsport fans amongst us will not be fooled by the dressing up of Brands Hatch to look like Monza, as well as the shaking of cameras to blurr out the fact the cars being filmed are moving quite slowly. But given that many of these cars are the real, original chassis' so driving them at danegerous speeds would be out of the question, as well as that filming each race on location would be quite some task, these small things can be overlooked. The film does a good job at highlighting many of the difficulties an F1 driver faced during a race, and so I am hopeful it can also serve as an eye opener for the less informed viewers amongst us.

However, there is one thing I think this film, and pretty much every other motor racing film I have ever seen (apart from TT 3D, actually) is missing. That is footage and a potrayel of one of the biggest challenges a racing driver faces pretty much every second they are behind the wheel...driving on the limit. Rush does a good job at highlighting speed, a good job at showing the lack of visibility in rain and a good job of showing the horrors of an accident. But it doesn't show how at many points during a lap, a driver will be hanging onto the car, fighting it and constantly correcting it. Instead it has footage of some power slides that are clearly the result of a very heavy right foot rather than actually being on the limit. There are a few scenes with some real lock ups that help to add realism to the footage, but it's hard for an F1 anorac to not notice the way a lot of these incidents are very scripted.

Nevertheless, without using more CGI and without risking smashing up priceless machinery, I suppose pushing Hunt's actual championship winning car to the limit would be impossible. So working with what he had, Ron Howard has done a very good job.

One area in particular where the film really excells, is in its use of sound. We all know that F1 is quite often defined by the sounds, and so capturing the raw engine notes and gearbox details, has no doubt been very effective in causing many F1 fans to produce wry smiles and shivers down their spines during the film. I even really loved the including of noises when cars clipped kerbs and spluttered on over run; very realistic. Maybe Formula 1 should take note and add some proper audio to today's live races...

All in all, I really did enjoy the film. The racing footage was as good as it could be, and with many of the cars being used actually being the genuine articles, it was even more impressive. The sounds were fantastic, the script was effective, and even the acting was top notch. So overall, as a hardcore racing fan myself, I have to say, Rush is very much worth going to see. Go and see it in the cinema too, as I have a feeling that without the big bass surround sound, the film will be significantly less effective.