Quote: Originally posted by Nick Read on 07 March 2005
Perhaps the V6 IS a supercar and youre talking it down Simon? The fact that everyone on here owns different Clios and likes different Clios is surely a given, hardly even worth debating.
What does supercar actually mean? Well, most accepted supercars have an unusual engine location for a road car, either mid or rear engined, mostly mid though. Clio V6...mid-mounted engine - check. No supercar has ever been front wheel drive...Clio V6 - RWD - check. All supercars have an indefinable something that makes them a looker ....Clio V6 turns heads everywhere - check. Supercars must be fairly rare...perhaps youd see one or two in a year, if that. Well Im CS events manager and I only see that....check. And finally, a supercar MUST be impractical - Clio V6, shopping car given wide arches, rwd, only two seats and not even a decent boot in the front with low-rent interior - check.
So by my standards the Clio V6 is a supercar. Supercars have never been about affordability - a new M5 is bloody expensive but its not a supercar. A Bentley Continental GT is over 100k but not a supercar. There are plenty of supercars from the 60s/70s that would struggle to keep up with a modern hot hatch that can do 0-60 in the 6s. It doesnt make them any less super.
Whether you like the V6 or not - we should all applaud Renault for having the bottle to build it - just because they could. Thats what gives our Clios a motorsport heritage that Saxos or Fiestas will never have. We complain that Renaults are pieces of crap that are full of rattles and squeaks but then theyre not as dull as a Daewoo Matiz or a Vauxhall Corsa.