Renault Twingo Renaultsport 133
Posted by Jamie Hibbard at 10:00AM on Thursday 28 August, 2008 0 Comments
So I can't tell you when I got to ride in the Twingo Renaultsport, but I can tell you what I thought about it. (And Sam's driving it today so we should have a blog up about that this afternoon, or tomorrow morning.)
Anyway, the ride took place sitting as passenger next to Renaultsport's extremely talented test driver Gregory Fargier. Or Greg, as he's known around Renault's test track at a hush-hush location near Rouen, northern France.
Oh OK, it's not hush-hush, it's near Aubevoye, and you can see it on Google maps if you had the inclination to do such a thing. Satellite view is best.
We were driven around the wiggly bit inside that big oval, where Greg was only too happy to show us how good he is. I mean, how good the car is.
While I was focusing on the immediate corner, Greg was happy to chat about the chassis as he chucked the Twingo into a drift at just over 90mph.
Renaultsport spent a large amount of their efforts working on two chassis: the Cup and the, erm, not-Cup.
We were on the former, which offers a stiffer ride for those who fancy a few weekends on the track, whereas the latter gives you a more supple ride for regular day-to-day road driving.
It's up to you which you choose, but it'll cost you a bit more for the Cup.
Greg had the traction control turned off, naturally, even though they're very proud of the way it drives with it turned on.
Renault call it ESP - presumably as it knows what you're about to do next - which Greg says is very predictable. He means that you can get away with a little bit of slide, but then it helps you out at the worry point.
Which is good considering the market at which they're aiming this Twingo 133 (the 133 name referring, as with previous Renaultsport models, to the bhp).
The 1.6-litre naturally aspirated engine sounds brilliant, and they've spent a long time getting all the different noises right. So don't be tempted to fit an after-market exhaust if you buy one, 'cos you'll ruin the tones.
The looks of the thing are what really blew me away in the metal though. It's one of those cars that the more you look at, the better it gets, and personally, if I was to buy one, I'd get the Cup chassis for no other reason than that gets you the fantastic looking 17inch anthracite wheels (that you can see in the photo).
So anyway, that's the taster that we got a while back. We'll bring you a a drive blog later hopefully, but for now, from the passenger side impression, this looks like it's going to be one hell of a little car.
The 500 Abarth's going to have to go some to beat this.
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