Renault has been producing cars in Turkey for quite a long time but, until now, only low-cost models were exclusively manufactured there. The Clio has been produced in two locations: the Flins plant in France and the Bursa factory in Turkey. The first generation of the Megane sedan was the low-cost alternative of the range and it was produced there. The second generation of the Megane Sedan followed the same path. The current generation Megane sedan, actually a redesigned Megane called Fluence, also comes to this world via Turkey.
The Clio family has its own cheap version: the Clio Symbol. Want to guess where it was manufactured? And that is just fine. But when we’re talking about the entire Clio range (almost, because the Sport versions are manufactured in a different factory anyway) it’s a different story.
In today’s image-dominated sales era, this could be a lethal move, marketing wise. Of course, other manufacturers have done it too. Let's take Volkswagen for example, who manufactures the Jetta (Golf V-based generation), the Golf Variant and the New Beetle in Mexico. But the German manufacturer had a very strong argument: the Mexico plant has a high degree of automatization so the location is actually irrelevant. Besides, nobody ever complains about the German cars’ build quality, which is not a thing we can say for the French ones.
Maybe Renault will get it right, or maybe not. We’ll have to wait and see.
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