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Extreme: 2020 Mègane Renault Sport 300 Trophy

Exciting times

Posted: October 13, 2020

The numbers
Prices: R774 900 (m), R799 900 (a)
Engine: 1798 cc, four cylinders, 16 valves, direct injection, turbopetrol
Power: 221 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 400 Nm (m), 420 Nm (a) between 2400 and 4500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 5.7 seconds
Top speed: 260 km/h (m), 255 km/h (a)
Real life fuel consumption (a): About 9.9 l/100 km
Tank: 50 litres
Luggage: 434 – 1247 litres
Turning circle: 10.6 metres
Ground clearance: 115 mm
Towing mass: Not rated
Warranty: Five years, 150 000 km
Service plan: Five years, 90 000 km at 10 000 km intervals

Subtlety is for wimps. Renault Sport (RS) does not do that. To support my point, here’s another meaning for those initials: Reject Subtlety. It even translates back into French – Rejeter (la) Subtilité.

Look at the thing. It comes only in three dedicated colours; Tonic Orange, Sirius Yellow and Pearl White. OK, that one’s for owners with less flamboyant personalities, but you get my drift.

Then there’s that body with its flared wheel arches and air grilles; F1-inspired front splitter; aggressive rear diffuser; RS and double diamond badges; chequered flag and RS 300 Trophy decals; one huge exhaust outlet signalling road music to die for (no artificial sound box, Watson); red Brembo calipers over ventilated discs at both ends and Jerez triple-tone alloy wheels shod with 245/35R19 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tyres.

They’re made for handling, with stiffened sidewalls, so you could find the ride a bit hard. I even stopped to make sure they weren’t run-flats. They aren’t. They work excellently on conducive (smooth) surfaces, but stay away from rough city streets if you can.

Also part of the handling kit is the Cup chassis; 25-percent stiffer shock absorbers, 30-percent tighter springs and 10-percent stiffer antiroll bars - not the way to softness - with a mechanical, limited-slip differential.

There’s more inside. Recaro lightweight racing buckets; red accent stitching on suede-like Alcantara steering wheel and upholstery and, finally, aluminium pedals, foot rest and gear lever.    

It welcomes you in with scary-jungle-movie sound effects and an ominous double heartbeat - to alert its pilot to exciting times ahead, perhaps?

But beneath all this, it’s still Mègane, Renault’s midsize family car. That means the usual six airbags, ISOFix kiddie seat mountings with top tethers and a central courtesy lamp, solid construction, a shipload of safety- and handling equipment, built-in satnav, R.S. VISION LED three-function headlights, dual zone automatic air conditioning, 8.7” Multimedia centre with touchscreen and phone mirroring, decent sound system and parking camera.

The boot loads at about 80 centimetres over a 16-cm lip and offers a light, two bag hooks, four securing rings and ambidextrous closing handles. The seatbacks split one-third, two-thirds and fold almost flat. There is no spare: Too heavy, mes amies, just a pump kit.

This six-footer, seated “behind himself”, found adequate headspace although knee room was a bit tight. He also found repeater vents but no temperature or fan controls, the ubiquitous arm rest with cup holders, grab handles, three head restraints, full belts and small door bins.  The all-black hood lining was rather claustrophobic although some firms charge extra for that.

Where it steps away from being “just a Mègane” is the engine. Still 1800 cc and turbocharged, its power outputs have increased over the years to 221 kW and 400 Nm in the manual version and 420 Nm for the EDC automatic. That’s to make sure the acceleration times remain equal although there’s a small penalty in fuel economy.

Apart from that, the familiar RS toys are still there; morphable digital instruments, five driving modes, four-wheel steering, RS Monitor and a couple of extras with the EDC – launch control and multi-change down. This feature, under braking in manual mode, lets you drop several gears quickly by holding the down-paddle until your preferred exit ratio comes up.

I did it the old way, flipping away at the flapper until instinct said it was right. Different strokes. It accelerates like a race horse that had steroids for breakfast, snarls like an RS is meant to and can be encouraged to twitch its perky little derrière occasionally; even though Renault swears they engineered that particular flirtatiousness out of it. Thank heaven they failed.

It was fun, as always, but one young fan described it well. He sat inside for a moment, absorbing the ambiance. But took no selfie. Strange kid. Then he asked politely to see the engine. I showed him the crowded compartment and gave him a rundown of the specs; 221 kilowatts or 300 horsepower, 400 Newton-metres and nought to 100 in 5.7 seconds – slightly quicker than a Mustang 2.3 turbo. He remained silent but his eyes went big and his body language said it all: “Holy corona, Batman”.

Then came the kicker: “Please adopt me?”

Test unit from Renault SA press fleet

We have driven a few Meganes RS before - in 2011, 2015 and 2019



What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.

Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads or goat tracks as well. As a result, my test cars do occasionally get dirty. It's all part of the reviewing process.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material.

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