RENAULT Clio 0.9 TCe Review

The new Clio is a car that pats you on the shoulder and says "forget about the old spirit, this is the new Renault!". This is not just some fresh air, it's an overall positive change that the brand needed. If the company keeps its promise and implements this throughout its range, good times are ahead for them.

The Clio can be described as a controlled experiment, a successful one. The good genes from its ancestors were kept, so the car feels lively. It offers you a slight aroma of time travel, with the destination being that age when Renault's compacts used small engines, but put big smiles on your face.

And the overall product has now grown up, the Clio feels more solid, it manages to offer excellent refinement for its class.

These assets come to support the best part of the car, its styling. The supermini genre allows the Clio to successfully make use of many exterior and interior styling moves that may have seemed exaggerated otherwise. But here they all make sense.

While there's no negative side of the Renault Clio that strikes you, there are a few dark sides that add up. We'll start with the quality of certain materials inside the car, which doesn't match the design.

Then there's the nature of the engine line-up's star. The 0.9-liter turbo TCe engine may please enthusiasts seeking a bit of thrills in a normal car, but the unit doesn't help non-interested drivers achieve the best fuel economy.

The Clio manages to work its way to the podium of the small hatch class, where it meets the Volkswagen Polo and the Ford Fiesta. Thanks to the dynamic feeling, the Clio and the Fiesta are closer as competitors than any of them is for the Polo. While the French definitely uses a fresher approach than both of the others, we can't say it outpaces any of them.

It seems that the Clio comes with a bit more drawbacks when talking about the overall experience. However, its funky attitude means that it has the potential to win you over.