« Back Renaultsport Megane RS Trophy-R

In the history books (okay, Wikipedia entry), there will undoubtedly be a Renault shown under ‘hot hatch’. They have had more amazing hot hatches than any other make - from the 5 Turbo, to the Clio Williams, 172, 182 Trophy, V6 and 200, to the sublime Megane 250 Cup they have rarely produced a duffer.

The latest Megane RS lacked a little of the sparkle we’ve seen in the past though, so we were pleased when RenaultSport announced this latest Trophy-R model as it takes ‘focused’ to a new level. The engineers at Renault have managed to strip a staggering 130kg from the Megane Trophy thanks to a carbon bonnet and diffuser, lighter rear axle, thinner glazing and a lightweight battery, along with throwing away the rear seats and replacing the front ones with composite versions.

You can save a further 9kg of rotational mass by specifying the carbon fibre wheels, but you’ll need a rather eye-watering £12,000 to tick that box. All these changes, along with bespoke Ohlins dampers and new tyres means that the Trophy-R recently claimed the Nurburgring lap record for FWD production cars beating the Honda Civic Type-R by over 3 seconds with a time of 7 minutes and 40.1 seconds. Impressive stuff!

And you can win one of these incredibly rare hot hatches for one week only in the BOTB Midweek Car Competition!