The Renault Clio RS18 Is An Incredibly Rare And Quite Expensive Hot Hatch
Last year, Seat announced that it was only bringing 24 examples of its Leon Cupra R to the UK. That makes the car rarer than all but the most exclusive of supercars found on our British Isles, but you ain’t seen nothing yet - Renault has its own limited-run piece of hot hatchery, and it’s shipping over just 15 of the things.
It’s called the RS18, named after Renault’s current Formula 1 challenger. Based on the 220 Trophy, it’s been given a lovely ‘Deep Black’ finish with ‘Liquid Yellow’ accents - the latter being the hue used for the F1 car.
It also has a smattering of RS18 decals, while the Renault ‘diamond’ badge, RS logo and rear diffuser are all coated with gloss black paint.
On the inside you’ll find a numbered sill kick plate, a steering wheel trimmed in leather and Alcantara, and carbonfibre air vent surrounds. Our favourite addition is on the outside, though: it’s been fitted with a noisy Akrapovič exhaust.
All sounds rather nice, but it’s not cheap: the RS18 will set you back £24,295. Granted, a Trophy with the Akrapovič pipes optioned works out more, so if it’s a 220 you’re after, you might as well have this fancy version.
Then again, you could have a 208 GTI By Peugeot Sport for less, and that - unlike the Renault - has a manual gearbox. And then there’s the incoming Ford Fiesta ST, which should weigh in comfortably less than £20,000. Thinking about it, the new Megane RS isn’t significantly more than this Clio.
Where would your money go?
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Where would my money go? Golf GTI.
Same
id spend it on the 308 GTi
much better car than the golf in almost every way except build quality, buts its pretty close
also for 24k youre getting a base model GTi with little to no options
and we know that VW love their expensive options
That’s a great choice…another choice of mine would be the Alfa Romeo 147 with the Busso V6😍😍😍
Honda Type R*
Fk2 Civic Type R in my case
So I guess the new fiesta St will have a special 5 limited edition model and costing 80,000?
inb4 Alcantara memery
Lmao
implying it can keep up with an F1 car
Time to contact my friend the Nigerian prince
If I had £25k to spend on a rare hatch, my money would go on a mint Alfa Brera S 3.2 v6 - amazing car and I’d still be left with about £8k
I’d put my money on clio V6 phase 2, sure it’s old and £10 000 more expensive but still
Same
I thought for a couple of seconds that Renault made the RS16 available (the Clio with the Megane RS engine). But i realised it was RS18 and not RS16 …
I like the new hot hatches in Renault Sport. But the hot hatch formula wouldn’t work without a manual. Sure a PDK or ZF automatic is fun, but cars like Golf GTI, Focus RS, and Civic Type R have gotten a great reputation as the best hot hatches with the fun-to-drive character with stick-shift. I have loved the old Renault hatches like the Megane RS and especially the Clio V6 and they really need to go back to manual and even so, include automatic option too. I mean think of the reason why BMW is still making manual M models, unlike Audi and Mercedes.
I’d take it.