► We drive the new Renault Megane
► More distinctive than previous Meganes
► It’s a good base, but it’s no Renaultsport
The challenge I find with the current Renault Megane is to try to remember what one looks like. Rather like the quiet, pallid kid in your class whom you’ve long since forgotten, the Megane’s amorphous styling and sector-leading mediocrity renders it unimaginable in one’s mind’s eye.
Of course, there was one outlier, which is easily brought to mind: the Megane Renaultsport, and so it is of no surprise that in order to solve this existential plight Renault has gone to its tuning division early on in the fourth generation to try to lay some markers down, to create some excitement and drama around the launch.
Alas though, what we have here is not The Megane Renaultsport, but a Megane GT ‘developed by Renaultsport’, the semantics of which are instructive, and no doubt to be slathered liberally across marketing material until a real RS car appears in 18 months’ time. Because this is a car using the 1.6-litre turbo from the Clio Renaultsport, with 201bhp and a seven speed dual clutch ’box, four-wheel steering and suspension tweaks, but a Megane fondled by RS rather than given the full Dieppe down-and-dirty.
It certainly has a decent new platform on which to develop a car though, because the new five-door Megane is stiffer even than an RS coupe, with the widest track in the segment and a chunky, handsome body.
Clearly deciding the baby will be going out with the bathwater, Renault has decreed nobody shall miss a Megane again, fitting this one with more tube lighting than a council house at Christmas. Bright red LEDs have been draped across the muscular rear to distinctive effect, although the front is messier with vast Renault badge, LED lamb-chop sideburns and the firm’s beaky nosed design aesthetic. Overall though, the well-proportioned Megane is a huge improvement visually, and especially so in GT flavour with 18-inch alloys, two exhausts, ubiquitous fake diffuser and Renaultsport badging developed by Renaultsport. Probably.
Inside, the cabin is dominated by a large touchscreen which gives you all the nav, streamed music and de-rigeur personalisation functions, such as making the cabin go Amsterdam Pot Cafe Pink or Hotel Swimming Pool Blue, with a pinch, poke or swipe. Also available is the usual automatic safety kit to stop you crashing, although I found the system warning how many tenths of a second you are behind the car in front oddly goading, especially if it was another Megane giving it some beans. Always satisfying to find a tenth or two through a fast bend…
Although some of the plastics, especially around knee level, aren’t to the plush standards of a Peugeot 308, it is still a massive improvement and in the spirit of ‘Developed by Renaultsport’, the seats have indeed been developed by Renaultsport, who as the finest maker of this type of chair in the real world, have triumphed again.
So far, so good, but to really find out what Renaultsport has developed you need to get the Megane in the mood by poking the RS button. This marginally quickens the steering over other more mundane modes (on a rack which is already 40% quicker than other more mundane models), produces a rortier (fake) noise through the speakers, hangs onto gears longer and makes the throttle noticeably more responsive: keep your foot level and revs rise more than 500rpm with the change.
Quick rather than outright fast, at full throttle the GT snaps through the gears keenly enough at maximum revs, although changing with the paddles is pointless and uninspired. My Sky TV remote has a more mechanical feel.
But the gearbox, supplied by Getrag, isn’t the finished article I’d wager. Some of the shift points on part-throttle are a bit random, stubbornly holding gears like a dog with a bone when there is no need and then coming over all limp and submissive at other times. I’d expect better mapping when the car comes to market in the summer.
The four-wheel steering is engineered off the cheap-and-cheerful torsion beam rear suspension using an actuator to turn the wheels, and at speeds under 50mph they go in the opposite direction as the fronts to swivel the car more quickly while mirroring the direction of the front wheels at higher speeds.
Renaultsport has developed its own dampers for the suspension, not least to counteract the whopping 35kg weight of the rear-steer mechanics and you can tell: the GT has that wonderfully plush yet firm ride of RS cars.
The handling is interesting: pull out of a T-junction quickly and the car behaves like a runaway shopping trolley, with you carving to and fro at the wheel trying to get the right amount of turn on, off, on and possibly off again. In less aggressive maneouvres it is extremely agile though.
At higher speeds the GT is fun, to a point, as it turns in and sticks with as much mechanical grip as any everyday hot hatch has mustered. Then at much higher speeds, the rears kick in and it takes another bite out of the corner mid-bend. Often at this point you have to wind lock off as though in oversteer, even though you’re not, which is an odd sensation.
What you have then is a nicely-built, quickish car for those who like to go round corners with a happy smile on their face and song on their Spotified stereo, rather than a car for grimacing enthusiasts wringing the last sweaty-palmed ounce of performance from their near-slick Michelins. Indications are it will cost as much as £25,000, which seems chuffing expensive, but it is a car developed by Renaultsport. And that’s worth remembering.
Up against
Better than: All cooking Meganes, ever – Better built, classier, more handsome
Worse than: Peugeot 308 GT – Stylish and involving, but not hot, hatch
We’d buy: Nearly new Megane RS 275 Trophy-R – Because we’re a bit daft like that
The specs: Renault Megane GT
Price: £25,000 (est)
Engine: 1616cc 16v turbo 4-cyl, 205bhp @ 6000rpm, 204lb ft @ 2400rpm
Transmission: EDC seven-speed auto, front-wheel drive
Performance: 7.1sec 0-62mph, 145mph (limited), 47mpg 134g/km CO2
Weight: 1392kg steel
On sale: Summer 2016
Love: A memorable Megane that’s not an RS
Hate: The gearbox feels half-finished
Verdict: A characterful mid-market warm hatch, but no Renaultsport
Rating: ***
