Richard Simpson

Well seems like everyone is going a bit crazy for the Clio 182 (myself included) so does anyone have any experience of its big brother?

Saw one the other day and it certainly looks a bit special on the road and sounded good too. A quick look in Autotrader and you can have one of the originals for around £16K a fair bit more for the latest version. I remember the original getting a bit of a hard time in Evo but it would seem that they rate the latest one quite highly.

What's everyone think - anyone driven one? I think I might test drive one, would certainly be a bit different and the wife loves them!

Richard

matlow

from what i've read in a few places the original v6 was terrible for falling to bits, the new one is reportedly pretty solid. look pretty special but never had a go. dealers just will not let you have a play

bluenose172

iTrader: (2)

There are some dealers that have new demo cars. The best people to talk to are over at www.cliosport.net, there are at least 4/5 people there that have the new V6 and plenty of Mk1 owners also!

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

I've driven all the modern Clio Sports (172 mk1, 172 mk2, Cup, 182 & both V6's), and in my opinion the V6's are not worth the extra over it's smaller engined brothers, especially the mk1 V6!

The mk2 V6 is much improved, but could still be better...

mynickers

Stay well away from mk1 v6, every test I ever read said the chassis wasn't sorted out very well, they're well known for snap oversteer and spin, nice concept, but in practice they were not very good.

The new one was re-engineered with help from Porsche, Evo love them, they are suppose to be a mini porsche, and they're suprisingly very, very reliable from all the tests so far. Clarkeson said they had one for a while, and ragged it. He said it was the car with the least things falling off / going wrong.

It's top of my lotto list, be a freaking great car, but you do get alot of attention, there is a silver one near me in kingston and everywhere he drives people stop stare and point. www.evo.co.uk, go and have a search, should have some recent articles on the mk2, but stay away from mk1 if I was you.

172 is mighty fine, but cup is better.

You can get the 182 which sounds amazing from the articles I have read with the cup sus. set up, and they're pissy cheap I think 13k odd, you can't go wrong for that, very good hatch.

XT

Actually there are two of them in Kingston
I saw them once parked next to each other in front of the Bang & Oluffsen(sic) store

mynickers

The one I keep seeing is silver with silver wheels, looks freaking great, but I still think it should really be in blue! Defo not for the shy or faint hearted though!

Richard Simpson

yeah I was wondering if its 15K better than a 182?

Also 255BHP aint that much these days, I think it weighs 1400kg, I wonder if there are any power upgrades...

Does look cool though although still pretty expensive

mynickers

Defo looks good, but you might get fed up with the attention sometimes I reckon, it's such an outrageous car, they really get alot of attention, they're quite loud as well!

Have you had a look at insurance, I can't see it being cheap on a V6?

They're very, very unpratical too, not that - you'd even look at it if you needed an MPV, but the turning circle is suppose to be really poor, so you'll be doing a few 8 point turns plus the engine takes up the whole rear, and it has a very small front storage space under bonnet.

As for horses, you've gotta drive it really, figures dont' always mean that much, I went out in a standard golf gti 16v mk2 the other day, which is on paper 107bhp, which is nothing for a hatch these days, but boy did it feel potent.

Plus it's rwd mid engine v front wheel drive, front engined, totally different driving experience. Both fab cars though...

182's sound great, I am going to take one out for a test myself, they're quite tunable too!

Richard Simpson

Quite surprised, £750 insurance with Elephant which isn't bad, not even garaged! Not too bothered about practicality (only two of us any way) so I think it might be worth a drive....think I'll contact my local dealer see if they can get one for a test drive - will be a laugh anyway!