Just stumbled across this thread, don't get on here much as i haven't had a Clio in years! This was never a 'Rallycross' car, you were never told as such. 'Autocross' maybe.
It was purely a toy but came to the end of it's life when the rear beam gave up & HG died on the original 180k engine. It was rebuilt from basically the shell up with alot of new or reconditioned parts in '09, basically just to remove the VRM that was on it, but also to be a simple, effective usable car, it was never going to be a show winning concourse car of course! But everything worked well, including the brakes, it had fast road/competition pads so they need a little heat before they start to work well. The dampers aren't top notch, but they're uprated Boge Gas items & not very old. The brake pedal may have a bit of travel now because the drums usually need periodic adjustment as the auto-adjusters never work, this will bring the pedal back up with a firmer feel. The shell has seen better days yes, but wasn't terrible in the great scheme of things. All of which you knew, nothing was a surprise, it was advertised honestly and sold at a fair price reflecting the shell's condition yet work & parts that had gone into it, by me, a long-time reknowned & reputable 205 enthusiast. Kev knows me well & as it happens, you guys should know of Mark Fish right? This car was driven by one of the Fish's before it was sold and praised massively! It was a fantastic neutral handling car, perhaps with a little rear-brake bias being pre-dominantly used off-road, but never failed to make me smile, it was only sold because i built better cars for the job since, but i still miss it! Sorry to hear about the HG though, i got the engine from an 80k Ph2 car and it seemingly always ran well as it did when i sold it, was it ever clear how it/what went?
Good luck with it!