With a motor show on, all the news is meant to be about big reveals and all the latest cars due in showrooms soon. Sadly the glow of LA must be sullied with confirmation that the Renault
Clio R.S.16
, that mad 275hp hot hatch hooligan, will not make production. Boo, and indeed hiss.
And it all looked so promising
The official line from Renault is as follows: "Clio R.S. is built at the Alpine Dieppe plant. Here it's possible to make very low volume, hand built production cars. The plant is also gearing up for the production of the Alpine and, it's due to the focus on this, that the eventual decision was made not to divert attention away to make some R.S.16s." So while that's certainly disappointing, to have the
Alpine sports car
as compensation doesn't seem too unreasonable.
It had been discussed that the Clio could wait until after Alpine production had begun, but this would have meant a launch in the first half of 2018; it was decided that this was too long to wait having first shown working prototypes of the car earlier this year.
So that's it for the Clio we all dreamed of then. It was always going to be a long shot, what with the old powertrain and a new car, yet there was hope that it might make production. As it is, the R.S.16 will go down as one of the greatest concepts that never was. Shame. There is that Alpine to look forward to however, and older Megane-engined Clios aren't as rare as you might think...
