When Renault slaps an RS badge on a car, they’re generally not messing about. Built on the remains of the almost mythical (and soon-to-be-relaunched) Renault Alpine, the merry band of engineers at Dieppe punch out small fast cars with such regularity you could set your Breitling to them.
The Megane RS is pretty much the undisputed king of the current hot hatch crop. Despite being not too far from its use-by date, the Megane is still getting plenty of attention. Which brings us to the 275 Trophy.
VALUE
At $57,990 drive away you’ve got a choice of two colours (yellow and white) and a Gillette twin-blade decal pack, which turns out to be a good metaphor for the driving experience.
The money also buys you an eight speaker stereo with USB and Bluetooth, alcantara and leather trim, rear vision camera and parking sensors, keyless entry and start-stop, cruise control, power windows, Ohlins adjustable dampers, dual-zone climate control, auto wipers and headlights and various RS bits and pieces.
The Megane RS Trophy also gets a delicious set of Speedline 19-inch wheels and a poppy Akrapovic titanium exhaust.
DESIGN
The three-door Megane barely looks related to the five-door hatch. With a pumped-up rear end and a more stylish silhouette, the distinctive hatch has been with us for some years now and is ageing gracefully.
The retina-searing yellow of our test car is certainly a matter of taste, but the paint itself is staggeringly pretty close-up and works nicely with the dark wheels. Keep the latter away from kerbs, though.
The decal pack isn’t particularly distinctive so it wouldn’t matter too much if you took the hair dryer to it.
Front and rear bumpers are suitably sporty, with a set of bazooka exhausts poking out of the rear. Behind the black wheels are red calipers – this car means business.
Inside you are treated to the best seats in just about anything with four wheels – an Alcantara-trimmed set of Recaros, complete with racy slots for a harness.
The inside is quite dark and if there’s a genuine criticism it’s of the silly, angled dials on the dashboard. They’re canted away from you and hard to read. As is the case with these things, the speedo reads way too high.
SAFETY
Six airbags, stability and traction controls, ABS, brake assist, brake force distribution. The Megane has a five star ANCAP safety rating.
INFOTAINMENT
The 7-inch touchscreen comes with Renault’s nifty RS-Link. You can plug in your USB stick and record a full set of telemetry for your no doubt law-abiding country drive. It records a huge range of data from the car and when you get home you can overlay a trace of your run into Google Maps.
The stereo is quite good and the rest of the infotainment system easy to use once you learn what the tiles do on the screen and master the baby’s-bottle nipple shaped thingo that controls the cursor.
ENGINE / TRANSMISSION
Renault’s long-lived 2.0-litre turbo is under the bonnet, mated to a six-speed manual. With 201 kW and 360 Nm of torque, it expects premium unleaded which it will drink at the rate of a claimed 7.5l/100km. Stick the boot in and you’ll get around 13l/100km.
DRIVING
The Megane’s notoriety is well-deserved. While its immediate competition are all excellent – Golf GTI, Focus RS, Audi S3 – this thing will leave them for dead. It might compress your spine in all sorts of ways, but you will be hugely entertained along the way.
It’s not super-entertaining in traffic, in fact it’s almost too docile. The controls are heavy – clutch, steering, shift, but never obstructive or difficult.
The engine needs a little bit of encouragement to wake up to the boost, but you’ll be fairly busy dodging potholes anyway because the ride is quite firm.
The seats keep you in place and you can relax into them, knowing you don’t have to hold yourself. There’s even stop-start, but it appears to be spending most of its time sucking on a Gitanes somewhere rather than actually stopping the engine.
All we can do is implore you to find a good piece of road. Because once you do, you will discover that the hype surrounding this car is entirely justified.
Like the old Clios 200 and 182, this is a car for thrashing. The turbo whoops as you flatten the accelerator, the limited slip diff letting the wheel dance just enough in your hands as you shoot forward.
You can brake so late into corners and then get straight on the throttle without a whiff of understeer. The LSD might add weight but it also brings serious grip and adjustability to an already epic chassis.
The ride which has bounced you and your brave passengers around thus far suddenly makes sense. The RS shrugs off even substantial mid-corner bumps, requiring almost no correction from the driver’s seat. You can keep your foot in without fear of being spat off the road, it delivers huge confidence and gigantic amounts of fun.
The Megane will sprint to 100 km/h in just six seconds flat.
It’s a genuinely exhilarating car to drive, with plenty of movement at the rear to remind you that this is a weapon that requires respect.
SUMMING UP 4.5/5
It’s a raucous, joyful thing even if it isn’t the perfect all-rounder. Where it lacks an easygoing ride in normal driving, it more than makes up for it. It’s brilliant on back roads and the track and is one of those cars that puts a smile on your face no matter what.
Likes: Fun chassis, decent equipment, individual looks
Dislikes: Rough ride in the rear, silly cruise control button, weird noises
