Clio Renault Sport
hot hatch produced since 1998 by Renault Sport
The Renault Clio Renault Sport (or Clio RS for short) is a hot hatch produced from 1998 to 2019 by Renault Sport (or RenaultSport), the high-performance division of French automaker, Renault. It is based on the Clio supermini.
The engine and layout has remained relatively unchanged throughout most generations of the vehicle; a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter straight-four petrol engine with a FF layout and a three-door hatchback body style. However, the last generation was changed to a turbocharged 1.6-liter engine and a five-door hatchback body style.
Clio II RS (172 Gen 1/Phase 1)
In 1999 Renault presented the first officially branded RenaultSport Clio, the third Clio produced by the RenaultSport division succeeding the Clio 16V and Clio Williams.
This new Clio, the 172, was based on the three-door Clio II shell but had numerous features over the standard car, including wider arches, restyled bumpers, side skirts and 15-inch OZ F1 alloy wheels.
Power was delivered by the F4R 730 engine, a 2.0-litre 16-valve Inline 4 engine with a Variable valve timing (VVT) system via a dephaser on the intake camshaft pulley. The engine was a modified version of the F4R used in models such as the Laguna and Espace and was modified by Mecachrome to deliver a power output of 172 PS (127 kW; 170 hp) at 6250 rpm. Power was delivered to the wheels via a JC5-089 five-speed manual gearbox, resulting in a 0-60 mph time of 6.6 seconds, as tested by Evo Magazine in their February 2000 issue.
The 172 also featured interior changes over the standard car, including half leather, half alcantara seats embossed with the RenaultSport logo and equipped with side-impact airbags.
“Clio Renault Sport” enters the record as hot hatch produced since 1998 by Renault Sport. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clio, Renault and Sport can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7312730. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 2019, 1999 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Clio Renault Sport” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.