September 1998, The Paris Motorshow. The Renaultsport Clio V6's first outing into an astonished world that couldn't believe what it was seeing. In times when other manufacturers were getting ever more conservative, was a global player like Renault really going to produce such a wild car or was it just a publicity stunt like most other car companies would do? Grab the attention of the Press for a few weeks then have it disappear into a storeroom somewhere.
Renault always likes to have a big presence at its home show and this year was no exception and boy did the Clio V6 deliver.
Christian Contzen was the Director General of Renaultsport - which includes the Formula 1, motorsport, road car engineering section ( whose previous project had been the first Renaultsport badged car, the Spider) and the ex Alpine Factory in Dieppe. He confirmed that the Clio V6 was born out of a brainstorming session to find a replacement for the Spider with the potential for a race series. A Spider V6 prototype had been built and evaluated but Clio 2 was new and fresh on the streets and it made more commercial sense to promote it, so the idea was born that Renault build a successor to the legendary mid-engined 5 Turbo. As always though, one of the most important factors is budget. For small production runs you either charge Aston Martin prices or you get clever with the design by using some parts the company already has. Hence this was not to be built at any cost.
In February 1998 the management gave the green light to fund the research and Renault Design, headed by Patrick Le Quement, worked flat out on a design proposal for the Concept. At this stage that is all it was - a Concept. Unlike today where car companies show a "concept" 6 months before the launch of the real thing with some different wheels, this was really just a concept of what could be done if the public liked the idea and the car could be produced to budget.
So at this stage the engineering specification, engine power etc was simply a wish list of what the company would like the end product to be, but as always the limited budget would provide a stiff challenge.
At this stage, if the car was to be built, there had been no decision as to who would engineer or build it. There would be a lot of input from Renaultsport obviously, but it had already been decided that Renault's main engineering department was at full stretch preparing for the launches of the Vel Satis, Avantime and Megane 2 early in the next decade so an engineering partner would be needed.
But that was for the future.
In September the first pictures of the Concept landed on my desk. WOW!
Here was a show stopping car if ever I saw one and one, we had been told, with a good chance of going into production. The pictures had magazine cover star written all over them. It was the type of car the Press love. An exciting version of a production car that their readers might actually be able to buy and in this case you didn't have to be a lottery winner to buy one. This type of car sells magazines. Simple.
Because this was a car that had not been out testing in public for a couple of years, even disguised, it was one of those genuine surprise cars.
I still remember the conversation with Patrick Fuller, the then Editor of Autocar magazine. It was two weeks before the Paris show and the next issue was one of Autocar's biggest selling as it had the annual Best handling driver's car group test which was to star on the front cover.
I sent the pictures over to Patrick with a promise from him to keep them secret until the embargo was lifted the following week. He rang me back within minutes of receiving them. "We love it. You've just knocked the Best driver's car off the front cover.
The Clio V6 had done its job. Make the motoring Press sit up and take notice of Renaultsport.
See Knowledge section, Reviews, Concept section, article 1. Autocar
Renault always likes to have a big presence at its home show and this year was no exception and boy did the Clio V6 deliver.
Christian Contzen was the Director General of Renaultsport - which includes the Formula 1, motorsport, road car engineering section ( whose previous project had been the first Renaultsport badged car, the Spider) and the ex Alpine Factory in Dieppe. He confirmed that the Clio V6 was born out of a brainstorming session to find a replacement for the Spider with the potential for a race series. A Spider V6 prototype had been built and evaluated but Clio 2 was new and fresh on the streets and it made more commercial sense to promote it, so the idea was born that Renault build a successor to the legendary mid-engined 5 Turbo. As always though, one of the most important factors is budget. For small production runs you either charge Aston Martin prices or you get clever with the design by using some parts the company already has. Hence this was not to be built at any cost.
In February 1998 the management gave the green light to fund the research and Renault Design, headed by Patrick Le Quement, worked flat out on a design proposal for the Concept. At this stage that is all it was - a Concept. Unlike today where car companies show a "concept" 6 months before the launch of the real thing with some different wheels, this was really just a concept of what could be done if the public liked the idea and the car could be produced to budget.
So at this stage the engineering specification, engine power etc was simply a wish list of what the company would like the end product to be, but as always the limited budget would provide a stiff challenge.
At this stage, if the car was to be built, there had been no decision as to who would engineer or build it. There would be a lot of input from Renaultsport obviously, but it had already been decided that Renault's main engineering department was at full stretch preparing for the launches of the Vel Satis, Avantime and Megane 2 early in the next decade so an engineering partner would be needed.
But that was for the future.
In September the first pictures of the Concept landed on my desk. WOW!
Here was a show stopping car if ever I saw one and one, we had been told, with a good chance of going into production. The pictures had magazine cover star written all over them. It was the type of car the Press love. An exciting version of a production car that their readers might actually be able to buy and in this case you didn't have to be a lottery winner to buy one. This type of car sells magazines. Simple.
Because this was a car that had not been out testing in public for a couple of years, even disguised, it was one of those genuine surprise cars.
I still remember the conversation with Patrick Fuller, the then Editor of Autocar magazine. It was two weeks before the Paris show and the next issue was one of Autocar's biggest selling as it had the annual Best handling driver's car group test which was to star on the front cover.
I sent the pictures over to Patrick with a promise from him to keep them secret until the embargo was lifted the following week. He rang me back within minutes of receiving them. "We love it. You've just knocked the Best driver's car off the front cover.
The Clio V6 had done its job. Make the motoring Press sit up and take notice of Renaultsport.
See Knowledge section, Reviews, Concept section, article 1. Autocar
