It's six months on from the unveil of the Concept car and the Public reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. "Build it" they say and many have started putting down deposits in the hope that it will make it into production. The chances were always going to be good when the racing car project was given the green light to begin in 1999. It was now March 1999 and the race car was ready to be driven by the Press for the first time. To be called the Clio Trophy race series, the launch event was held at a small circuit near the Dieppe factory in Northern France called Pont L'Eveque. A tight and twisty circuit that perhaps in hindsight was not the best location but it was close to the factory where the cars were made, so Renaultsport decided that was where it was to be held.
Non-motorsport car magazines are less interested in coverage of racing cars for obvious reasons, but here was a car that was going to go into production for use on the road it had now been confirmed. Renault UK alone had over 500 customer orders for the car, some of whom, of course, would turn out to be speculators hoping to make a quick profit on a car that was to have such a small production run.
Although it was decided never to let a journalist drive the Concept car for fear they would make snap judgements on a Design study, I was always happy to entertain interesting requests for access to the Concept car. EVO magazine were always fans of the car right from the start. If ever a car encompassed the "Thrill of Driving" - their ethos from day one of the magazine - then this was it. They knew they were going to drive the Trophy race car so they asked if a photoshoot could be arranged with the Concept car and Trophy both together. I arranged for both cars to be taken to Mortefontaine, an industry test circuit outside Paris and there EVO got the first moving pictures of the cars together, driven by Renault staff. They had an exclusive so what was now guaranteed was the cover of the magazine for the feature and the coverline of "Driving the world's smallest supercar" under a picture of the road car concept was what appeared.
Naughty, as the implication was that it was the road car being driven, only for the reader to find out inside that it was the race version. But of course they had probably bought the magazine by then......
What resulted was a terrific 10 page article on both cars and even more interest in the road car.
One point worth mentioning from the article is the often quoted story that VW built their Lupo 3L TDi in response to hearing rumours that Renault were doing the same with the Clio. Only of course the VW turned out to be a car that could go 100km on 3 litres of fuel (the European standard fuel consumption test) not have 3 litres of engine where the rear seats normally are!
It is true that both cars debuted at the Paris motorshow in 1998. Also that the Clio had been kept under wraps as it had only been approved for the Concept to be built 7 months earlier so VW would not have realised their misunderstanding if it were so. What is also true is that on the opening Press day of the show, many journalists would eagerly repeat this story to me over and over again saying they had heard it was a VW engineer who had proudly claimed they could match the Clio 3 litre that was due to be unveiled later that day not realising the Renault was a bit different. So maybe this is one urban myth that has some truth to it.
One thing that does make me smile is if you search for this story on the web you sometimes get the story written the other way around, normally on a VW forum
i.e. that Renault went ahead developing a race series and production car to replace the Spider on the back of a rumour that those "fun" engineers at VW, well known of course for developing outrageous cars, were going to put a 3 litre engine in a Polo or Lupo.....yeah right! :rofl:
See Knowledge section, Reviews, Concept, article 3. EVO May 1999
Non-motorsport car magazines are less interested in coverage of racing cars for obvious reasons, but here was a car that was going to go into production for use on the road it had now been confirmed. Renault UK alone had over 500 customer orders for the car, some of whom, of course, would turn out to be speculators hoping to make a quick profit on a car that was to have such a small production run.
Although it was decided never to let a journalist drive the Concept car for fear they would make snap judgements on a Design study, I was always happy to entertain interesting requests for access to the Concept car. EVO magazine were always fans of the car right from the start. If ever a car encompassed the "Thrill of Driving" - their ethos from day one of the magazine - then this was it. They knew they were going to drive the Trophy race car so they asked if a photoshoot could be arranged with the Concept car and Trophy both together. I arranged for both cars to be taken to Mortefontaine, an industry test circuit outside Paris and there EVO got the first moving pictures of the cars together, driven by Renault staff. They had an exclusive so what was now guaranteed was the cover of the magazine for the feature and the coverline of "Driving the world's smallest supercar" under a picture of the road car concept was what appeared.
Naughty, as the implication was that it was the road car being driven, only for the reader to find out inside that it was the race version. But of course they had probably bought the magazine by then......
What resulted was a terrific 10 page article on both cars and even more interest in the road car.
One point worth mentioning from the article is the often quoted story that VW built their Lupo 3L TDi in response to hearing rumours that Renault were doing the same with the Clio. Only of course the VW turned out to be a car that could go 100km on 3 litres of fuel (the European standard fuel consumption test) not have 3 litres of engine where the rear seats normally are!
It is true that both cars debuted at the Paris motorshow in 1998. Also that the Clio had been kept under wraps as it had only been approved for the Concept to be built 7 months earlier so VW would not have realised their misunderstanding if it were so. What is also true is that on the opening Press day of the show, many journalists would eagerly repeat this story to me over and over again saying they had heard it was a VW engineer who had proudly claimed they could match the Clio 3 litre that was due to be unveiled later that day not realising the Renault was a bit different. So maybe this is one urban myth that has some truth to it.
One thing that does make me smile is if you search for this story on the web you sometimes get the story written the other way around, normally on a VW forum
i.e. that Renault went ahead developing a race series and production car to replace the Spider on the back of a rumour that those "fun" engineers at VW, well known of course for developing outrageous cars, were going to put a 3 litre engine in a Polo or Lupo.....yeah right! :rofl: See Knowledge section, Reviews, Concept, article 3. EVO May 1999
