There’s an old-fashioned feeling about being seated at the wheel of this Bentley. If I were a 58-year-old foundry owner, this is the car I would choose to de-stress in on the way home. But I feel too young for it.Phil Scotney, 27, environmental health executive from Nottingham USUAL CAR: TOYOTA AVENSIS ESTATEMy expectations were high and, I am happy to say, they were fulfilled. The interior of the Bentley is crafted to a level of quality that I’ve never seen before. There were no blemishes in the vast amount of leather, every stitch was perfect, and the finishing touches, such as the chrome pull-out organ-stop style controls were in a different class to those of other cars. In the sporty set-up, with tougher suspension, lower ride height and sport-mode transmission, it was surprisingly nimble on the country lanes and boasted a huge amount of torque across the rev band, good for overtaking. The fortunate few won’t be disappointed.Peter Kibble, 48 , IT company director from Bingham, Notts USUAL TRANSPORT: LAND-ROVER DISCOVERY, HARLEY-DAVIDSON SPORTSTERThey really have nailed the interior, and herds of cows must have been used for the leather trim.
The craftsmanship and the attention to detail is superb and delightfully tactile, the build-quality superb Even the hints of Passat in the styling are forgivable Sadly, the ride and the drive train disappointed. I wanted to be wafted, but power-on, power-off transitions cause shunting in the drive train. Low-end torque felt weak for such a large engine and there was distinct patter and rumble from the suspension on less-than-perfect roads. A Bentley demands a certain character; the mechanics didn’t quite deliver.THE VERDICT: If you would like to take part, e-mail motoring independent.co.uk or write to: The Verdict, Features Department, Independent House, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS, giving your address, phone number and details of the car, if any, you drive. Specifications
Model: Clio Renaultsport 182 Trophy Price: £15,500, on sale now Engine: 1,998cc, four cylinders, 16 valves, 182bhp at 6,500rpm, 148lb ft at 5,250rpm Transmission: five-speed gearbox, front-wheel drive Performance: 140mph, 0-60 in 6.8sec, 34.9mpg official average CO2: 194g/km This is wicked, probably in several senses. I’m splashing round a wet track at Pont l’Eveque, near Dieppe, in a Clio Renaultsport 182 Trophy and I’m having a fabulous time. Turn into the bends, feel the tyres cut through the water, play with the accelerator as I flick through a twist, feel the tail edge out when it’s really slippery, correct the steering and accelerate again to pull it straight…
it’s the car and me, in touch with each other and with the track.
But nibbling away at the euphoria is the notion that I’m driving a kind of endangered species, because no-one else makes little hot hatchbacks as pure as this any more. The others are less inclined to let the driver take the lead or burdened with more luxury. Only Renault does it the way it used to be done, and soon even the Clio Renaultsport 182 will be no more. But what a way to go: this final Trophy version is as great a hot hatchback as you’ll find Today things can’t be what they were. There is a chassis and suspension development engineer at Renaultsport who keeps a little piece of history: not an old Renault but something from his company’s arch rival, a Peugeot 205 GTI 1.9.
He keeps it to remind himself of how a really good hot hatchback should feel. It was, after all, the most perfectly-honed driving machine a hot hatchback has ever been, which is why I, too, have one. A quick blaze around the lanes in my little Peugeot and all is right in my own little world Peugeot hasn’t made anything as sharply focused since then. Renault is now the chief torch-carrier for the hot hatchback. But you do need the right version of the Renaultsport Clio 182: either a Clio 182 Cup, a little less luxurious than a regular 182 but fitted with lower, firmer suspension which still gives a decent ride, or the Cup suspension option on your plusher 182 (as most buyers specify). Or, now, spend £15,500, have a new Clio 182 Trophy and join just 524 other buyers. Five hundred Trophies are bound for the UK, because we love hot Clios the most, and 25 for Switzerland of all places Not France, strange to tell.
This final flourish for the current-generation Clio marks the end of production before a complete new range – inevitably bigger, heavier, more sophisticated – arrives later this year. That range will, after a decent interval, include a new 200bhp Renaultsport model, but will it be as pure, as agile, as intimate as the 182? The Trophy is designed to exaggerate what is great about the Clio 182 without spoiling the rest of it. The key to its sharper focus is its Sachs Racing suspension dampers, which cost about 10 times as much as the normal items and feature additional, separate reservoirs for the oil and pressurised gas a damper contains. This means, simply, that they work more efficiently for longer.
