Renault Clio V6

// £20,000–£45,000

Mini mid-engine supercar With a fondness for ditches

It’s ofcial: the lesser-spotted Clio V6 is hurtling towards extinction. While there were 400 phase 1 and phase 2 cars on UK roads in 2005, there’s now a mere 212 registered. To be fair, it was a rare car in the frst place – more Ferrari F40s were built than Clio V6s – but it’s the V6’s fondness for inserting itself backwards into hedges that has culled the numbers.

You have to question what Renault’s board were smoking when it was signed of: a rear-mid-engined hatch with a 227bhp V6 nicked from the Laguna instead of back seats, cartoonishly wide bodywork, 13m turning circle and a short wheelbase that made it rotate quicker than a blender. And then it got really absurd, because despite all that power it weighed 300kg more than the Clio 172 Cup, so its 6.2 seconds 0–62mph time was only half a sec quicker than the FWD Cup.

Things improved with the 251bhp phase 2 car – more power, longer wheelbase, better suspension geometry – but you need to enter ownership with your eyes open. Buying a good one is pretty much pot luck: “Your only hope is to hold out for something with immaculate service history, and don’t go for the cheapest one out there,” says Scott Glander from SG Motorsport, a man who fxes them for a living. “A private sale is the way to go; dealers just want maximum proft and don’t want to pay for the work.”

A car that’s tricky to justify by any conventional thinking, but then you look at it… and feel that pang of want in the pit of your stomach. Chances are, we’ll never see anything remotely like it again: a

mini-supercar with questionable weight distribution and zero driver aids that forces you to think and adapt your driving style to survive. As an exercise in dynamics, it’s fawed, but its inimitability ensures it’ll always be in demand.

One we found... Mechanically original, 38k miles, £29k but resprayed in pearlescent white. Sacrilege or rare gem? Over to you...