Imagine you are two days away from starting your holiday. A holiday that will see you travel a total distance of over 2,000km in a week. Now imagine returning to your car to find that, since leaving it parked up for just a few hours, someone has reversed into it, smashing a headlight, pushing out the wing and marking the corner of the bumper. Yes, that's how I returned to find the Clio. I probably did use up my vocabulary of expletives at that moment.
With it being a weekend and my departure being a 4am start I had no chance to locate and fit a headlight. What is more, the Clio Sport has double optic headlights that differ from the normal standard ones fitted to other Clios. Oh, and Renault would like to relieve you of around €200 for a new one.
So setting off at 4am with one headlight was not a highlight of the trip. What were, however, were the roads around north Wales. The views are always stunning and the roads are mostly smooth, decently wide and best of all - twisty. I spent around an hour having some fun in the Clio around Wales' finest B-roads before turning sensible and continuing on my intended course heading to my intended destination.
I managed to beat the estimates given for my travel time by an hour without even trying. In fact a few times, I had to check myself and slow things down, as the speeds rise so rapidly in the Clio you can easily find yourself the wrong side of the imposed limit. Totally unintended of course. The childish amusement one gets from pulling away so quickly from tailgaters on the motorways as the lane becomes clear is still to wear thin with me. Many cars with much larger engines are left undoubtedly wondering how that standard, nondescript Clio can pull away so quickly as to leave them a distant object in the rear view mirror. One such car would have cost fifteen times the cost of the Clio and would most likely have used more fuel over the same distance. It is a satisfying feeling to have such an accomplished small tourer that has cost so little.
On the second day of my arrival I managed to locate a second-hand headlight and with some help got it fitted in good time.
I am also delighted to report that the Clio never missed a beat the whole time. The two front tyres are still above the legal limit of tread and have at least another month or two of life in them yet. The noise inside the cabin is acceptable according to all passengers that rode in the back, and it's only between a certain range that resonates inside and produces an unwanted booming, but the speed it does this is actually over the legal limit anyway. In just over 4,000km I have put in a total of two litres of synthetic oil. Not cheap stuff of course, but given its performance and the way it has been driven, that's expected.
So what sort of fuel economy do you think I would have got on this road trip in the highly tuned Clio? Well on the way there, including having way too much fun on the roads of North Wales for a bit, I managed to average 32mpg (7.35 litres/100km) and on the way back a much improved 36.5mpg (6.44 litres/100km) and that was with a load on board that had the suspension compressed at the rear.
The hard driving over the week passed without incident and the brakes held up well, though there was one time where I managed to get them to fade. It's always a heart-in-mouth moment when the pedal goes to the floor and stopping effort is hardly noticed, but that was more driving style and trying to cook them than anything else. They were back again right away though and continued to perform faultlessly always stopping the lightweight car in an amazingly short distance.
Now we are back home it's time for a wash, wax and a vacuum inside. Then I must get the Lexus and the little Fiat out for a run. In fact, I am looking forward to driving the Fiat again, there is just something so satisfying about economical, simple, unassuming little cars that ties in just right with shoestring motoring strategy in general.