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Small car doesn’t have to mean poorly equipped car. Our basic Clio meets the range-topper. By Mark Walton
They say you should do more of what makes you happy, so this month I have two Clios. The orange Tic Tac is our base-spec TCe 90 with a three-cylinder engine and a six-speed manual; the car beside it is the top-ofthe-range Clio featuring Renault’s E-Tech hybrid drivetrain and Esprit Alpine trim. Altogether it’ll set you back £25,495 – roughly £7k more than our car. Is it worth it?
It looks great, with its Iron Blue metallic finish (a £700 option) and those 17-inch alloys (standard on this trim level). Inside it has sportier seats; there’s nice contrast stitching; and there’s a bigger touchscreen.
These seats make the Clio feel more like a hot hatch, with big side bolsters. However, before you start feeling racy, there’s the drivetrain…
This self-charging E-Tech hybrid system is found in several Renault models, and in Clio guise it features a 1.6-litre petrol engine, an electric motor and a 1.2kWh battery pack. Altogether it produces 143bhp – over 50bhp up on our 89bhp – and you can certainly feel the difference in the way it accelerates.
And yet, and yet… I find it frustrating. The E-Tech gearbox, originally called the LocoDiscoBox, was designed by Renault engineer Nicolas Fremau, using technical Lego over a Christmas break. Lovely back story, but it doesn’t make for an enthusiast’s car. There are four gears – three for most use plus an extra gear for higher-speed driving which disengages the electric motor completely, to reduce drag. This fiendishly clever system does all the decision making, switching between electric and petrol power, but as you drive along there’s often no relationship between your speed and what the engine’s doing. Sometimes you’re driving slowly and the engine is revving like crazy; next, you’re driving fast and the car suddenly kicks into a long gear and feels like it’s gone to sleep.
Driving this ‘hot hatch’ I often found myself disengaged – while in our base-spec shopper my brain is always engaged. It demands you perfect those gearchanges, maximise your momentum. If you love driving, speed and acceleration aren’t everything. So having two Clios is lovely but if I had to pick one it would be our 1.0-litre Tic Tac. It might feel like a base-spec rental car, but it’s a lot more fun than the posh one.
Renault Clio TCe 90 Evolution Month 4
The story so far
Time to find out what we’re missing with the top-spec Clio ★ Great at motorway speeds, despite the tiny engine
- Apple CarPlay makes Renault’s own tech redundant
Logbook
Price
£17,995 (£18,695 as tested) 999cc turbo three-cylinder, 89bhp, 12.2sec 112mph 54.3mpg (ocial), 45.1mpg (tested), 118g/km CO2 14.8p