hi i owned at blue clio F1 i absolutly loved this car, it felt good to drive apart from the hard ride, good handling but when pushed it understeered easy,reliable engine,cheap to run,insure it just lacked the modding side of it for me
then bought a 08 subaru impreza sti (hatchback) good car was quick, stuck to the floor well but oversteered to easy when pushed (needed money spending on suspension set up), no feed back at all through the steering it felt abit lame and boring it took all the fun out of driving, i wanted to mod it but bad pistons stopped play, they put cheap pistons that where failing on standerd 300bhp and bad headgaskets that where braeking at 30,000miles, i wanted to put stage 1 which would of been 360-380bhp £1600, but would of had to put forged pistons in and cosworth headgasket both costing including labour around £2200-£2500 cheapest quote, so all that plus expensive tax £450,insurance and low mpg average and alot of motoway 22mpg, it had to go i enjoyed it but not enough.
i know own a 07 seat leon cupra, very sim to the clio but better, i feel it handles better than the clio it does not understeer as much prob down to the big 18" alloys wid pirelli p zero rossos, you get good feedback from it, its faster than the clio, it puts a smile on your face like the clio, perks are its got a bigger boot and 5 door, its got alot of scope for tuning eg revo remap would smoke my old scooby instraight line (not directly of the line) saying that i never launched it because of how expensive diffs are so there would not be to much diference in the dry then the cupra would leave it miles behind.
in order of these 3 cars best 1-3rd last
1,seat leon cupra
2,clio f1
3,sti
the only thing that pushed me away from clio it was not 5 door, lacked tuning, and i wanted a turbo car
clio very close second i really enjoyed it,so make sure you make a good choice and test drive quite a few cars before getting rid i still miss it now ha ha ha ha i test drove a gti but it lacked the power, i wanted an ed30 but could'nt find one if i could of found one i might of had that. hope this helps
Drove it rather sedately this week worst has been £40 better than the £60 in the bad ole ST days
