CLIO’S LOOKS IMPROVE WITH AGE
WHO remembers Nicole and Papa, the stars of the commercial for the first generation Renault Clio almost 30 years ago? Or Thierry Henry extolling the va-va-voom of the second generation? Now here we are on the brink of 2020 and the car celebrates that milestone birthday in June, with a fifth generation to lead a fresh assault on the market.
Almost under the radar, the Clio is the second-bestselling car in Europe, after the Volkswagen Golf. As the photo of all five generations shows, one really significant change is the size of the ‘pointe de diamante’ badge, which definitely has been hitting the protein shakes, getting successively bigger with each generation of the car.
But what was once a rather bland affair is now also quite a handsome car, especially in the Valencia orange body colour on the 2020 model shown here – it brings a whole new level of sportiness to the Clio, though given traditionally cautious buyers here, I suspect the Iron Blue will be a bigger seller.
The new car comes with a three-cylinder 1.0-litre powerplant with different outputs, ranging from 74hp to 128hp, and an 84hp diesel; a plugin hybrid will follow later. There are four trim levels – Expression (available only in the 74hp version), Dynamique, Iconic and RS Line, the only version to boast the 128hp engine. Prices run from €16,990 to €25,190, with the most popular version here likely to be the Iconic, given the relatively low price walk from the trim level below.
The car was launched to Irish media on Monday in Kilkea Castle, Co. Kildare, and while there are few taxing roads in that area, it gave me a chance to at least test the car for comfort, where it scores highly.
The cabin has been completely reimagined, and I particularly liked the seats and the vertically mounted infotainment screen. The TCe 100 petrol engine delivers stated 0-100kph acceleration of 11.8 seconds, though I felt it was nippier than that. It certainly is worth the extra cash to ignore the 74hp unit and its rather leisurely, to say the least, 16.4 seconds. Like all Renaults, the new Clio has a five-star EuroNCAP rating, thanks to a whole suite of safety features, and I took an instant liking to it. I look forward to a longer drive in it next year, just to make sure the va-va-voom really is still there.