It goes without saying that we love a mid-engined hatchback here at the good ship Jalopnik. Used to always looking for strange things coming from the engine plant where your goods are carried. Most of those weirdos come from France, because that country’s main exports are fundamentally strange concepts. It excels at strangeness in a way that no other country can. So there’s only one place Renault Sport Clio V6 Cups may have been around since then. This eye-catching blue unit was recently imported to Hobokenanother one of the world’s strangest centers.
The Clio V6 was introduced to the world as a Trophy race car back in 1999, then developed into a road-going death machine from 2001 to 2005. Racers had plenty of details that street V6s street cars that the Clios doesn’t have, including a sequential Sadev gearbox, full roll cage, lightweight magnesium wheels and 285 horsepower instead of the 220 horsepower the street cars have. In reality, Trophy cars don’t have much in common with street cars.
These were impressive machines for their time and still hold their own as track machines today. You’ll have to work a lot harder behind the wheel of one of these, as the rear-biased weight distribution pushes into fast-riding cities, but you’ll be a lot more unique than the fact that you just have another Miata.
This car is obviously not street legal and has never been used, so if you buy it you will be getting “off road use” only. It’s a race car, so keep that in mind before you shell out the $69,995 asking price. Of course, you can buy the so-called early Stage 1 Clio V6 is street legal at a slightly lower price (about $50,000) in the UK today, but the import fees and paperwork to get it here may not be worth much. However, the Trophy is significantly rarer than the road version as only 159 riders took to the road compared to around 3,000 on the road.
Is it a bargain? Incorrect. But where will you find a mid-engined French super hatchback racing car that doesn’t need to be imported? That’s what I think.
