182 Trophy, Williams
Hello all, last week I purchased a Renault Sport Clio 182 and although I've had lots of cars over the years, this is my first venture into small french hatchback territory and it normally pays to be on a forum with lots of knowledgable owners and experts so here I am! The car will be maintained by a very good local independent garage, and by myself for the more simple bits!
My daily drive was a Brabus tuned W211 E-Class until last month when a piston cracked, the rebuild will take a while so I decided to look for a car for about 2K to get around in until it's finished. Anyway, the trusted local mechanic who's rebuilding it recommended the Clio 172/182 as he tracks one and loves it. He also drives a track prepared BMW E30 M3 and a 997 C2s, so I trusted his judgement and went out with 2K to find a Clio!
Very glad I did. I've driven everything over the years, owned lots of very powerful high end RWD stuff, the minute I test drove the 182 it reminded me of everything that I love about driving. Proper gearbox, proper direct steering, stiff light chassis, bags of grip...etc...
Anyway, long story short it's no longer a glorified courtesy car, I'm going to keep it, probably for ever. Of all the things I've driven, (and you can see on my bio that's quite a lot of really quite special cars), the 182 is my favourite. I'm sure loads of you feel the same. So the plan is to tidy it up over the next year, but not to modify it substantially. I like the stock look, the power seems about right for the chassis, might look to improve the braking a little bit, but will mostly look to repair any bits that are showing their age.
The car is a 2005 with 85k on the clock. The body is silver and very good, couple of small blemishes which I'll be trying to sort out, the engine feels brilliantly strong as does the gearbox. Headlights are faded, as they all seem to be, steering wheel grips are a tiny bit worn, and the front left wheel arch liner needs replacing, air con needed re-gassing, done that, front fog light has a small crack in it too, mostly easy jobs! I'm a sucker for a tidy engine bay, so at some point I'll set about monumentally transforming that into something nice to look at, but for now, I'm just getting to know the car, getting my head around the mind bending handling, and remembering why I love driving!
Will probably be picking peoples brains in the very near future as I start on the odd jobs!
Thanks! Tom.
My daily drive was a Brabus tuned W211 E-Class until last month when a piston cracked, the rebuild will take a while so I decided to look for a car for about 2K to get around in until it's finished. Anyway, the trusted local mechanic who's rebuilding it recommended the Clio 172/182 as he tracks one and loves it. He also drives a track prepared BMW E30 M3 and a 997 C2s, so I trusted his judgement and went out with 2K to find a Clio!
Very glad I did. I've driven everything over the years, owned lots of very powerful high end RWD stuff, the minute I test drove the 182 it reminded me of everything that I love about driving. Proper gearbox, proper direct steering, stiff light chassis, bags of grip...etc...
Anyway, long story short it's no longer a glorified courtesy car, I'm going to keep it, probably for ever. Of all the things I've driven, (and you can see on my bio that's quite a lot of really quite special cars), the 182 is my favourite. I'm sure loads of you feel the same. So the plan is to tidy it up over the next year, but not to modify it substantially. I like the stock look, the power seems about right for the chassis, might look to improve the braking a little bit, but will mostly look to repair any bits that are showing their age.
The car is a 2005 with 85k on the clock. The body is silver and very good, couple of small blemishes which I'll be trying to sort out, the engine feels brilliantly strong as does the gearbox. Headlights are faded, as they all seem to be, steering wheel grips are a tiny bit worn, and the front left wheel arch liner needs replacing, air con needed re-gassing, done that, front fog light has a small crack in it too, mostly easy jobs! I'm a sucker for a tidy engine bay, so at some point I'll set about monumentally transforming that into something nice to look at, but for now, I'm just getting to know the car, getting my head around the mind bending handling, and remembering why I love driving!
Will probably be picking peoples brains in the very near future as I start on the odd jobs!
Thanks! Tom.
