CLIO 200 CUP v 208 GTI PS
Peugeot’s 208 GTI by Peugeot Sport is the pick of the current hot supermini brigade, but how will it fare against one of the all-time greats of the breed, the Renault Sport Clio 200 Cup?
Can our current favourite supermini match the brilliance of one of the greatest ever?
AFTER ALL THE FUN – THE WIGGLE OF the front wheels over a crest, the squealy-tyred passes for the photographer, the sound of an angry four- cylinder reverberating between Welsh dry-stone walls – and long after the cars are handed back to their keepers, evo’s production staff toil away in a stuffy office to ensure our efforts on the road don’t turn into a jumble of incoherent colours, shapes and characters by the time the issue drops through your letterbox. The most difficult task, I’m told, is trying to reproduce in print the retina-piercing vibrancy of Renault’s Alien Green metallic paintwork. Thanks to their efforts, the Clio 200 Cup you see here undoubtedly looks fantastic on the page, but for the full experience of its bulldog bodywork extensions and amphibious hue there’s nothing quite like setting it against an Elan Valley backdrop and drinking in the details.
It’s making the nearby Peugeot 208 GTI by Peugeot Sport look a little like someone has left their rental car behind for a day’s hiking in the valleys. The 208 is here because, well, it’s our favourite supermini right now and about the most focused hot hatch available at any price point, but we’re curious to see if our current favourite really is as good as we think it is. The Clio 200 Cup is one of the all-time greats and also represents a naturally aspirated formula no longer available in this class.
If there’s a sense we might be missing out, the Peugeot isn’t making the best first impression to convince us otherwise. The glossy white coachwork and matt black wheels appear somewhat unadventurous next to the tree frog-tinted Cup, or when compared with the more visually arresting ‘Coupe Franche’ ( black and blue two-tone) scheme of our long-term 208.
Refocus though and you’ll clock the way the Pilot Super Sports completely fill each slightly blistered plastic arch, and the subtle chequered flag motif in the front grille. There’s also just a hint of a red stripe in the lower grille, and at the rear a pair of round tailpipes grouped to the right of what Peugeot’s marketers might have you believe is a diffuser. And all four wheels appear pushed to the furthest extremes of the bodywork.
Spawned by the limited-run 30th Anniversary model launched in 2014, the Peugeot Sport gains a Torsen limited-slip differential over standard 208 Gtis and enjoys a wider track, by 22mm at the front and 16mm at the rear. It also sits 10mm lower than a regular GTI, with spring rates up an eyebrow-raising 80 per cent. Wheels are up an inch in diameter to 18 inches, and behind the fronts you’ll find a Brembo brake set-up.
There’s no risk of mistaking the Clio for a rental unless you’re parked outside the Pistenklause. Fellow staffer Will Beaumont has been buzzing around it since I pulled up, telling me how it’s still the best hot hatch he’s ever driven. ‘It’s the footprint that really sets it apart from the 208,’ he reckons, and it’s hard to disagree – it looks a good foot wider than its compatriot. No mere black plastic extensions here, either, just serious panelwork so wide that the 200 and its 197 predecessor had to be built on a separate production line from other Clios.
The Renault also has two tailpipes, but they emerge from either side of an aerodynamic device that stretches far past the trailing edge of the rear bumper, having started somewhere ahead of the rear axle line. And the front arches aren’t just wide, they also feature supercar-style vents to allow pressurised air to escape, reducing front lift. There’s a wider track than standard, too, front and rear, along with other surreptitious changes compared with the earlier 197, including stiffer springs front ( by 27 per cent) and rear (30 per cent). The dampers were also firmed up by 15 per cent, while a 7.5 per cent quicker steering rack was used. Unlike the Peugeot, however, there’s no limited-slip differential.
I opted for the Clio for the journey to Wales, having spent plenty of time in the Pug before today. The potential for a hellish journey is always high on the schlep from Northants and, true enough, cloying traffic turns a three-hour trip into a four-hour one. Only it isn’t really hellish. Unless you’re seriously mollycoddled then there’s nothing particularly taxing about a sub-ten-year- old car with air conditioning, power steering and a surprisingly pliant motorway gait.
The engine is strong too. When you’ve been spoilt by turbocharging, it’s easy to forget that a naturally aspirated 2-litre engine in a relatively small and lightweight car is more than enough for decent forward momentum, and while you do need to change down to get the best from the F4R 832 unit, that’s no hardship thanks to the six-speed’s gearshift. The wandlike lever may look like it’ll stir through a bag of cockles, but the action is short and it slots swiftly through the gate with a mere flick of the wrist.
Before you even get near any roads worthy of a car with so much development bulging from its arches, the Clio makes you reappraise what’s really necessary from a car like this. The dashboard’s a bit nasty, yes, but we’re not talking Renault 5 flakiness here. There’s no satnav and no USB slot, but the bits that matter – steering wheel, gearknob, seats – are quality items, and everything else simply does the minimum you’d expect of it. If there’s an immediate black mark it’s that the seats – the highly desirable optional Recaros in this car – seem mounted a touch too high, once a common Clio trait.
The Peugeot sits you lower; surprisingly so, in fact, given the divisive ‘ i- Cockpit’ dashboard layout, with its diddy wheel and raised dials, invite a higher perch. But while it’s one of the more agreeable and tactile cabins in its class, it all seems like tinsel after the Clio’s pared-back environs. The gearknob is more ornate but not any better to hold; same goes for the unusually
‘It’s easy to forget that a naturally aspirated 2-litre engine in a small, light car is more than enough’
shaped steering wheel. The satinfinish pedals may gleam at you from the footwell, yet they could be Teflon- coated for all the grip they offer your soles, and they’re illpositioned for the kind of heel-andtoe action that you’d hope would be encouraged. Don’t be fooled by the fussiness. On very first impression, the 208 GTI actually shades the Cup. No, really. It’s more accelerative, more immediate in its steering responses, and stands on its nose more readily when you hit the middle pedal. It’s also just a little easier to extract the bulk of its performance, with a lighter touch to all the controls and the feeling you can clip each apex a little tighter without worrying about skimming an extended arch on a granite outcrop.
Be in no doubt, either, that the shift to turbocharging has bred some truly rapid little cars. The sound emitted by the 208’s tailpipes won’t stir the soul but the accompanying pace is rampant if you’re inclined to use all the revs. It won’t protest if you do, either – Peugeot’s 1.6 is a cracking little unit, feeling strong from little more than tickover until the last few rpm before it bats into the limiter.
It’s an exciting car, this, your charge through the gears accompanied by some tugging at the small- diameter wheel – enough to feel like you’re working the tyres (and you really are), but not enough that you’re constantly having to nudge the 208 back on track. Corners will paste a huge grin over your face too, the strong brakes and sharp steering letting you hook the nose right into an apex before sinking the throttle once more and feeling the Torsen diff fire extra torque to the loaded outer wheel. ‘It seems to have more turn-in grip than the Clio,’ observes Will. I concur. The inside rear can be found hanging a few inches from the ground, the grip of its counterpart neither too great to induce understeer nor too little that you’ll have to deal with a spike of old-school Peugeot tail-happiness – unless you provoke it with a lift of the throttle, that is, in which case it can get fully lairy. It’s lost none of the 205 Gti’s appetite for oversteer.
But there’s a nagging feeling in this company that Peugeot has prioritised ability over tactility. Rushing through the gearbox is rendered little more than a necessary process by the slightly clunky, long-winded throw, and when you make that initial movement through the steering, you register its effect through your eyes rather than your palms. The brakes are mighty but the pedal slightly spongy, and great though the engine is, small, feathered movements of the throttle have no appreciable effect.
The Clio addresses all this and delivers more besides. Its steering feels a little dead at first, a little gummy off- centre, a little slow to respond. It’s less immediately rewarding than the darty Pug’s. Work at it, though, and as loads grow through the tyres, as steering angles increase, the Clio’s front end comes alive. The rack is ultra-precise, it’s just a little lower-geared than that of the 208, and the bigger wheel requires you to make more deliberate movements, steering from your shoulders rather than your wrists. The high-set seats encourage you to lean into the wheel too, like in a classic Mini. It’s as if the seat is pushing you over the front axle, and once you’re locked into that feeling, by
comparison it can seem as if you’re removed from the action in the low-set Peugeot.
Torque-steer is almost completely absent in the Renault, not least because its naturally aspirated engine hasn’t got much torque. The wheel doesn’t tug out of tight corners and it doesn’t hunt about on straight but uneven sections of tarmac. You’re not getting less information than the 208 provides – quite the contrary. The Clio is simply giving you the information that matters. As Will points out: ‘ The Peugeot needs its limitedslip diff, but while it has more torque, it’s not as linear nor as responsive as the Clio.’ Rare too is a car that feels so lockeddown, so abundant in its reserves of grip, yet also so malleable. The Clio sits low and wide but it dances like it’s on its tip-toes.
And the damping… good grief this is good. The older, 182 Clio Trophy gets plenty of praise for its remote-reservoir Sachs units, but it’s hard to imagine how you could improve the Cup’s set-up. It’s telling that Renault Sport didn’t go down the Trophy route with this generation. The 200 Cup rides beautifully at speed, yet body control is absolute. Chasing the 208, we thump through a steep dip at speed. I say thump, but the Clio just seems to ignore it, absorbing every millimetre of the compression – no contact with the bump-stops, no graunch of splitter on tarmac – and carries on as if it was just another minor blemish in the road.
The Peugeot is a fine hot hatchback, a car that blends wieldy size with knockout performance and an engaging chassis, and a car that restored our faith in Peugeot’s ability to operate on the same level it used to in the ’80s and ’ 90s. ‘ The 208 does 90 to 95 per cent of what the Clio can do,’ remarks Will, ‘ but to achieve that it has to have an LSD and super-sticky tyres. Fundamentally, the Renault simply has an exceptionally well-sorted chassis.’
Both the 208 GTI and Clio Cup are essentially modified shopping cars, but the Renault Sport product feels as though it was engineered as a performance car from the ground up. It not only outpoints the Peugeot, it really is one of the all-time greats, regardless of genre or price. Or, indeed, age.