Twin-test: Renaultsport Clio 197 v Mini Cooper S review

We were fortunate enough to have largely missed the 1970s, having been born at the tail-end of the decade that taste forgot.

We never encountered kipper ties, flares, three-day weeks, power cuts, prog rock, the Morris Marina, Terry and June or disco; for which we are truly grateful. However that’s not to say it was all bad, the decade also gave us Jaws, Alien, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, punk, Porridge, the World Trade Centre and of course the hot hatchback.

GALLERY: Renaultsport Clio 197 v Mini Cooper S

The hot hatchback was born (we can thankfully gloss over the 1960s Simca 1100) when a group of Volkswagen engineers decided to place a fuel injected 1.6-litre engine into the company’s new small hatchback, the Golf. Instantly a new genre was created, a simple, practical and lightweight design with a wheel-at-each-corner for great handling allied to a punchy engine – the “People’s Porsche” as it was dubbed. The problem is, everything has got a lot more complicated since then, the current Golf GTI weighs nearly twice as much as the original and has to pack double the punch as a result. It’s also a lot more grown up – the “parent’s Porsche” if you will.

So where do we find the successors to that original hot hatchback, what now offers the point and squirt handling, the grins-per-mile factor, the rollerskate ride that combines to say, “I’m not ready to grow up yet”? The answer lies in the class below the Golf and its rival the Focus ST and Astra VXR, what we might dub the “pocket-rockets”. Smaller, though not necessarily cheaper, these machines often pack almost as much power while feeling nimbler, more eager, more, in a word, fun. The old supercharged Mini Cooper S and the Renault Clio 192 were past masters of the genre so we thought we would pit their replacements, the now turbocharged Cooper S and naturally aspirated Clio 197 against one another.

Henry's view of the Renaultsport Clio 197

Ian's view of the Cooper S

With thanks to The Raceway, Docklands

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