This is a RenaultSport Clio 220 Trophy, a hot hatch made by one of the best teams in the business. It has an automatic transmission, and according to XCAR, that still ruins everything else that’s good about it.
We have to give it to Renault. The previous RenaultSport Clio wasn’t that good, so they listened carefully, and went on by improving it on every level.
The new RS Clio 220 has 10 per cent more power at 220hp thanks to a larger turbo, new intake and upgraded exhausts, a lower and stiffer chassis with Michelin Pilot Super Sport rubber, a quicker steering rack and a gearbox that can shift up to 50 per cent faster than before if you keep pulling the shortened paddle shifters aggressively enough.
And all of that made the Clio a better car, but still not as good as the third generation was with the naturally aspirated engine and the manual gearbox.
Wasted talent, really. But can you think of other cars that got wasted on lazy automatics as well?
Photo credit: Renault
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