Bonkers: Mégane Renaultsport R26R

Cars

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//BONKERS. It’s the word of the (Early) summer//

And if Bonkers is your thing, and you want your motoring world to be full of staccato shimmies, banshee wails and ludicrous performance-to-pound rates of fun, then the Renaultsport Mégane R26R should be high on your list of aspirations.

//STACCATO SHIMMIES//
We’re talking point and squirt. Picture the scene. Somewhere high up beyond Brecon, in the Eppynt mountain range to be exact, the R26R’s semislick Toyo tires are screeching. When the car showed up, we thought that the deep, carbon-fibre bucket seats and six point harnesses that come as standard might have represented a little bit of design overkill. Wrong.

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Negative cambers and randomly grazing sheep tend not only to test one’s nerve, but also the ability of a seat-and-strap combo to hold you in the right place. Over a cattle grid, dip deep then over a brow hard down in second. Momentary air, and then a long, sweep left-and-right down into the valley with negative camber and momentarily my offside front Toyo touches a combo of sheep poo and grass. The nose tweaks and shimmies. This is the only piece of non-positive grip in the whole two days of sublime rag-ology. And that was the driver’s fault.

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//BANSHEE WAILS//
There’s a certain sound that emerges from the rear-end of the R26R when you floor it. Thing is, it’s only perceptible from inside the cabin. We’ve had discussions, of course. Some people claim it is the turbocharger. But I don’t agree. The engine, which comes straight out of the standard R26, is indeed a four cylinder, 16 Valve, two-litre turbo, but this noise is nothing like the usual wheezey burp that you hear on, say an Impreza. This sounds more like a loud, breathy, banshee wail that doesn’t quite connect with the gallic vocal chords of the engine.. We all love the noise, whatever it is. And that’s not the only aural sensation encoded in the car. There’s also beautiful, singing hum that arises at lower speeds and revs. That’ll also be the barely legal Toyos again, then.

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The whole package is stripped of most of the soundproofing, and the rear windows are made of light plexiglass. What this creates is a car that lets you in deep to the experience of driving, and urges you to revel in the sonic artistry as well as try, just try, to test the limits of grip. The Limited Slip Diff and the other running gear tweaks, combined with the aerodynamics of that classic hunkered down, booty-shaking body mean that downforce is sublime and only gets better with speed. Yep. This must be, as Autosport called it at the end of ‘08, the most hardcore hot hatch that has ever been produced.

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//PERFORMANCE PER POUND//
Take one of Maranello’s finest on your average British road. No matter how many tens of thousands of hard-earned you spend, it is more or less impossible to exploit it. That’s where the R26R, in the grand tradition of little French sports cars, really shines.

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This thing goes from zero to sixty in six seconds, covers a kilometre from a standing start in little over 25 seconds, and, so it is claimed, holds the record around the Nuburgring for a front wheel drive car at 8.17. The list price of the car is around £24K, which while not exactly recession-busting cheap, is a genuinely accessible price point if driving is your passion. And that’s the thing. The build quality might not be Teutonic, you might have to strap your second child in the rollcage on the way to school (as I had to do the morning I picked up the car), but if you want a car that can be a daily runabout as well as an absolute muther of a track day hooligan, then this might just be the perfect fathers’ day gift. To yourself, of course.

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12 Responses to “Bonkers: Mégane Renaultsport R26R”

  1. gaz3434

    Yeah, EVO magazine liked it to! But given the choice, I’d still go for the FD2 Mugen Civic RR. ;o)

  2. LOVE IT,JUST LIKE A TOURING CAR STRAIGHT OFF THE TRACK! PRICE IS ABIT HIGH THOUGH BUT I GUESS THATS THE PRICE OF CARBON FIBRE.

  3. not a huge fan of french cars with exception to renaultsport clio and megan, and love the focus rs, looks and sounds stunning……
    but this megan will poo all over the rs, proven by many mags.

  4. Chris73

    Megane is far better than focus RS, as topgear proved it last sunday evening, Rs is good in straight line, it is the vauhxall astra vxr all over again, too much power and chassis can’t handle it, sometime more is less and the megane shine once more by being the best hot hatch you can get for your hard earned cash.

  5. I prefer 4 wheel drive subaru to this any day i don’t like front wheel drive cars. You can get some great prodrive stuff to spice up a wrx, the prodrive wrx sti is unbeatable on the road.

  6. As good as you all say this Renault is, when it comes to actually handing over money, virtually all of us will think of the build quality, depreciation, traditional Renault reliability (ahem) and go and buy the Ford, Subaru, Vauxhall, etc. You know it’s true.

  7. 2 words Ford Focus RS

    err – that’s three!

    Priceless ROFL !!!!

  8. Easily one of the best, if not the best, cars we can't get over in Canada. Not that the semi-slicks would do much good in snow…