So What's Next....? Life after a Trophy

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I hope he has been in the gym while awaiting the car to be finished then 😁

No,I just have the 205,no Trophy unfortunately.
The 205 has been away since September 2021 so I've just gotten it back.
I intended to just get it repainted but that soon escalated....🙄
 

Chipper

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I was always intrigued by a 205 Rallye or a Citroen AX Sport, the 1300 carb thing👌.

The prices are away up now, has anyone driven either of them?
 
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Yep we got the 4 round light front end like the rest of the world. Most of the cars in Aus that have the JDM front end would have been a conversion or personal import. Even the DC5R I had was more like the US Spec RSX Type S than the JDM equivalent. I blame the poorer quality high sulfur content fuel.
 
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Sorry to derail the thread a little, but after reading a few of the posts on page 1, I'm interested in why a 182 Cup would be the preference over a 172 Cup, or even a normal 182 with the cup packs?
I'm of course biased as a 'normal' 182 owner, with both cup packs, but as far as I could tell the 182 Cup didn't come with anywhere near the same performance credentials that made the 172 Cup so revered.

They still have air-con, but not climate control, still has ABS etc., so ultimately not appreciably lighter than a normal 182 with the nice bits. The only positives as I see it being; you've only got two colour choices, both of which are excellent IMO, and they came with the cup packs as standard. I'm sure the driving experience difference is imperceivable, so I'm not sure why you'd want to forgo the mod cons?
 

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Sorry to derail the thread a little, but after reading a few of the posts on page 1, I'm interested in why a 182 Cup would be the preference over a 172 Cup, or even a normal 182 with the cup packs?
I'm of course biased as a 'normal' 182 owner, with both cup packs, but as far as I could tell the 182 Cup didn't come with anywhere near the same performance credentials that made the 172 Cup so revered.

They still have air-con, but not climate control, still has ABS etc., so ultimately not appreciably lighter than a normal 182 with the nice bits. The only positives as I see it being; you've only got two colour choices, both of which are excellent IMO, and they came with the cup packs as standard. I'm sure the driving experience difference is imperceivable, so I'm not sure why you'd want to forgo the mod cons?

Go on then, it's Saturday evening and after a day of rest after a hectic few weeks I'm feeling frivolous enough to indulge a reply, with the caveat that I do have a sneaking suspicion that I'm merely providing material for the next Collecting Cars podcast... 😆

I'm trying to get to the nub of your question which seems to be; what is or was the point of the 182 Cup.

Like all these things, it's all down to personal preference and pretty subjective, and also perhaps in period when the cars were new simple things like availability and affordability. Without sounding glib, the whole 182 FF vs 182 Cup debate has surely been done to death and a bit like asking the question 'why would you buy a GT3 RS over a GT3'... Surely you get all the performance in the real world with a GT3 with the added benefits, why on earth would any one consider the more basically equipped stripped out 'track focussed' number??

The answer to which transcends the facts and figures presented on paper. For me, the genuine 'Cup' and "Trophy' cars have always been the pinnacle of the Clio 1*2 range, but that's because in a hot hatch I'm not fussed about 'mod cons' and luxury, that's not what it's about, it's about a semi-raw machine which I can belt down by my favourite back road and feel the visceral thrills of throttle response, steering feel, chassis feedback, and all the other sad cliches; and if I'm sat in some cloth seats and a more basic heating system enjoying that particular thrill of driving which these cars can serve up, I don't really give a monkey's. If I'm after luxury and pampered cruising then I'd probably not be buying an old RS Clio, in 2005 or in 2023. Of the options new back in 2005, I bought a 182 Cup because it served up all the bits I wanted with regards to a focussed drivers car over a 182 with 'packs', which just seemed like a rip-off at the time especially with some of the deals offered to shift Cups when new, and don't get me started on the V6 - I was offered the liquid yellow Mk2 demonstrator in the South Manchester area for an absolute song new, because nobody was brave enough to buy the bloody things... £16k. Yes, I still kick myself.

And then we have the whole 172 Cup / 182 Cup question.. Well, the reason I chopped in my 172 Cup in 2005, was because after 2 years of some pretty hard driving, the car felt tired. Don't get me wrong, the thing was genuinely quick, raw, accomplished, but at 30k miles or so it felt like it had done enough runs up the drag strip at Elvington and manic tours following Irish rallying. The 182 Cup wasn't as mental, but was a much better daily and it speaks volumes that when I do a check on the cars, my old 182 Cup is still out there somewhere being MOT'd and driven, whereas the 172 Cup? It sadly vanished years ago (like my old 205 GTi's), and I'm not surprised, a great car but I'm sure someone put it in a ditch sooner rather than later.

To conclude, my 172 was the wilder car, but the 182 Cup was probably the better car. A standard 182 with the 'packs' still feels unappealing to me I'm afraid, just as it did when new, because it was the more expensive trying to tick every box car. Like I said earlier, it's all subjective and down to personal preference and experience.

I think one thing we can perhaps all agree on is, no matter which iteration, we're lucky to be enjoying some pretty good drivers cars.
 
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Go on then, it's Saturday evening and after a day of rest after a hectic few weeks I'm feeling frivolous enough to indulge a reply, with the caveat that I do have a sneaking suspicion that I'm merely providing material for the next Collecting Cars podcast... 😆

I'm trying to get to the nub of your question which seems to be; what is or was the point of the 182 Cup.

Like all these things, it's all down to personal preference and pretty subjective, and also perhaps in period when the cars were new simple things like availability and affordability. Without sounding glib, the whole 182 FF vs 182 Cup debate has surely been done to death and a bit like asking the question 'why would you buy a GT3 RS over a GT3'... Surely you get all the performance in the real world with a GT3 with the added benefits, why on earth would any one consider the more basically equipped stripped out 'track focussed' number??

The answer to which transcends the facts and figures presented on paper. For me, the genuine 'Cup' and "Trophy' cars have always been the pinnacle of the Clio 1*2 range, but that's because in a hot hatch I'm not fussed about 'mod cons' and luxury, that's not what it's about, it's about a semi-raw machine which I can belt down by my favourite back road and feel the visceral thrills of throttle response, steering feel, chassis feedback, and all the other sad cliches; and if I'm sat in some cloth seats and a more basic heating system enjoying that particular thrill of driving which these cars can serve up, I don't really give a monkey's. If I'm after luxury and pampered cruising then I'd probably not be buying an old RS Clio, in 2005 or in 2023. Of the options new back in 2005, I bought a 182 Cup because it served up all the bits I wanted with regards to a focussed drivers car over a 182 with 'packs', which just seemed like a rip-off at the time especially with some of the deals offered to shift Cups when new, and don't get me started on the V6 - I was offered the liquid yellow Mk2 demonstrator in the South Manchester area for an absolute song new, because nobody was brave enough to buy the bloody things... £16k. Yes, I still kick myself.

And then we have the whole 172 Cup / 182 Cup question.. Well, the reason I chopped in my 172 Cup in 2005, was because after 2 years of some pretty hard driving, the car felt tired. Don't get me wrong, the thing was genuinely quick, raw, accomplished, but at 30k miles or so it felt like it had done enough runs up the drag strip at Elvington and manic tours following Irish rallying. The 182 Cup wasn't as mental, but was a much better daily and it speaks volumes that when I do a check on the cars, my old 182 Cup is still out there somewhere being MOT'd and driven, whereas the 172 Cup? It sadly vanished years ago (like my old 205 GTi's), and I'm not surprised, a great car but I'm sure someone put it in a ditch sooner rather than later.

To conclude, my 172 was the wilder car, but the 182 Cup was probably the better car. A standard 182 with the 'packs' still feels unappealing to me I'm afraid, just as it did when new, because it was the more expensive trying to tick every box car. Like I said earlier, it's all subjective and down to personal preference and experience.

I think one thing we can perhaps all agree on is, no matter which iteration, we're lucky to be enjoying some pretty good drivers cars.
Thanks for the reply, no podcasting here :LOL:, just a younger 182 owner who's probably a little bit too obsessive over the models. I daily my 182 which I think is where the biggest difference in our opinions lies, I assume you own another car for daily duties?

I just don't think in the case of 182 vs 182 Cup you give anything up to have those little luxuries, I'm quite sure the driving experience will be identical. The 172 Cup is a fair bit lighter so I can see how that would have an effect, I just don't see that being the case with a 182 Cup. Same engine, same suspension and negligible weight difference (if any).
Not sure it's comparable to the GT3/GT3RS, comparing a 182 Cup with a normal 182 in the same colour I don't think they'd be priced any differently, I'm sure a GT3RS commands a serious amount more, even if the difference is only 10 seconds on the Nordschleife and you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference in real-world road driving.

Good point about the price of them new though, never a consideration for me, but in modern times you seem to pay extra for the "stripped out" model of almost any fast car, essentially paying more for less, whereas the 182 models were the opposite, not a bad reason to buy a Cup when they were new. Plus by the time you'd spec'd a 182 with both cup packs and a nice colour I'm sure it was even more significant than the RRP suggested.

My point was more made with a view of today's pricing, I just don't see why you'd go for the 182 Cup when you could pay the same amount for essentially the same car with extra bits. I suppose it comes down to availability, which is probably the ultimate factor now any 1*2 is significantly rarer than they were even 10 years ago.

Amen on your last point, I've been lucky enough to experience some much more expensive cars in my time driving so far, but there's been nothing that has consistently kept me entertained like the Clio, I spend most of my time on challenging B roads and it thrives. Helps that they're quite good looking cars in Sport form too, and I've never been a big fan of hatchback looks either.
 

NickReilly063

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Great write ups Chaps, I really like the new and old opinions that keep these little monsters going.

One thing to add from me is you can’t really use them now like you used to - bollards everywhere- speed cameras - dash cams and the fact it’s a 20yr old car that needs a little respect or is that just me.
 
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I'd disagree- providing you have a good twisty road that's fairly local. Wider, less interesting roads don't bring out its true colours for me and never have.

A twisty road where you can have a riot below 70mph is all you need, and invariably no speed cameras etc. anyway.

Granted that will be highly dependent on your location.
 

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I think I'd have to say that you both have valid points there @NickReilly063 & @Patrick Bateman .

I completely agree Patrick that given the right stretch of twisty tarmac at the right time of day the best fun can still be enjoyed with the sparkling aplomb that these cars were designed for, but realistically given modern traffic that for me is meaning ever earlier forays out for a good drive and my location is pretty rural. As Nick suggests, given a lot of the constraints now of modern motoring, traffic density and some fairly appalling both driving and attitudes from others on the road, to use these cars like we did 'back in the day' simply isn't feasible. I find all 3 or my fun cars to be seriously hampered now in modern traffic, none of them are happy trundling at 20mph in urban areas and are equally stifled by the general populous default speed of 40mph in NSL. Nobody seems to drive with any degree of smoothness or 'flow' any more, it's all stop, go, and knee-jerk overreactions from others on the road which you're having to deal with. And now we have the added bonus of the dash cam brigade, who to somehow validate their purchase and use of these devices seem to purposely engineer dangerous situations with others on the road for 'content' to post up for social media likes or some sort of weird virtue-signalling, horrendous.

It's telling that the newest cars in the fleet are certainly more at home with the dulled down bumbling of modern traffic flow, but the older they get, the less suited to it they are. The 1965 Mini being the most tellingly grumpy, you can tell the whole thing is designed for quieter 1960's roads and driving, less traffic, more opportunity to simply bowl along at reasonable speed, simple things like the gear ratios simply clash with the modern low traffic speeds, the amount of time I'm having to row between at least three of the gears, dip the clutch, try and keep the twin SU's happy, it becomes almost a form of torture for both man and machine. The 182 isn't as extreme as this, but the landscape has changed significantly enough in the last 18years or so to be telling on how and when we can use the cars for enjoyment.
 

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Well Andy, I think you know me well enough to know I'd certainly be taking the RS... ☺️
Indeed, Ed - as I would myself!

Slightly off-topic, yet related to a few of the latest posts here, I have found that my desirability [for a given 1*2] was very much linked to how eager the car felt. I can't say that I've ever driven a badly handling RS Clio but I have certainly had experiences in 1*2s that have felt significantly, for want of a better word, flatter than the driving experience in others. I personally believe that this links back to the fact that the F4R heart of these machines varied so much, in terms of output/throughput, right from the moment they left the factory. When I first picked up #165 I absolutely fell in love with the dynamics, the small-car/big-engine feel, the playfulness of the chassis; but the engine wasn't particularly great. In comparison to my then-girlfriend's Type-R, it was a long way down in outright performance. It was a long way off the performance level of her own RS Clio that she had prior to the Type-R. Despite running health checks and diagnostics, it was given a clean bill of health - yet a dyno pull resulted in a rather paltry 157bhp figure. Very disappointing to say the least when other 1*2s were around 18-20bhp higher and around 10-15lbft higher torque, too. Quite simply, I had a weaker F4R and there was very little I could do, other than look to start down the modification route. But I don't need to explain what happened once that route had been chosen... :)

Fast forward 16 years and my 5th engine (!) is an absolute cracker (even if the rest of the car is often problematic). It is a whole different level despite the car being returned to stock form. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that this secondhand engine is probably as performant as the first ITB build I performed many years ago (albeit not quite so aurally pleasing).
 

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I have found that my desirability [for a given 1*2] was very much linked to how eager the car felt. I can't say that I've ever driven a badly handling RS Clio but I have certainly had experiences in 1*2s that have felt significantly, for want of a better word, flatter than the driving experience in others. I personally believe that this links back to the fact that the F4R heart of these machines varied so much, in terms of output/throughput, right from the moment they left the factory.

I've had exactly the same experience with F4R Andy, indeed, I alluded to this earlier in the thread with regards to the huge difference in performance of my 2005 182 Cup when new and Trophy No.69 which I ran simultaneously from '05 to '08, the engine in the Trophy was completely flat, and at the time my guesstimate was that it was about 20 bhp down on the Cup, which would tally with your dyne findings in period. It was like a de-tuned version of the motor in the Cup and I never got to the bottom of it.

Thus my delight when I bought and drove No.407 and discovered that it had an engine with all the pep of my old Cup, mated to the wonderful Trophy chassis. Finally the full Trophy experience was all there to enjoy! It's certainly made up for the nagging disappointment I always sadly felt with No.69.
 
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Indeed, Ed - as I would myself!

Slightly off-topic, yet related to a few of the latest posts here, I have found that my desirability [for a given 1*2] was very much linked to how eager the car felt. I can't say that I've ever driven a badly handling RS Clio but I have certainly had experiences in 1*2s that have felt significantly, for want of a better word, flatter than the driving experience in others. I personally believe that this links back to the fact that the F4R heart of these machines varied so much, in terms of output/throughput, right from the moment they left the factory. When I first picked up #165 I absolutely fell in love with the dynamics, the small-car/big-engine feel, the playfulness of the chassis; but the engine wasn't particularly great. In comparison to my then-girlfriend's Type-R, it was a long way down in outright performance. It was a long way off the performance level of her own RS Clio that she had prior to the Type-R. Despite running health checks and diagnostics, it was given a clean bill of health - yet a dyno pull resulted in a rather paltry 157bhp figure. Very disappointing to say the least when other 1*2s were around 18-20bhp higher and around 10-15lbft higher torque, too. Quite simply, I had a weaker F4R and there was very little I could do, other than look to start down the modification route. But I don't need to explain what happened once that route had been chosen... :)

Fast forward 16 years and my 5th engine (!) is an absolute cracker (even if the rest of the car is often problematic). It is a whole different level despite the car being returned to stock form. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that this secondhand engine is probably as performant as the first ITB build I performed many years ago (albeit not quite so aurally pleasing).
Apologies this is off topic, but it's too much of a coincidence not to post somewhere. I just stumbled across this old thread on cs, while looking for the source of an old image (an RB in a river), it's a trophy driving through the infamous floods of 07. Out of interest I found what number trophy it was to see if it was still going, it was #165! Funnily enough listed for sale a day after the flood post :LOL:. I'm sure it's irrelevant so many years later, but you can blame that for your bad Trophy luck!

 
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loving all these responses. Taking me much longer to read now! Keep them coming.

@SharkyUK was it Porsche or Ferrari who started the whole charge more for less trend? Was it the RS or the Challenge Stradale?
 

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loving all these responses. Taking me much longer to read now! Keep them coming.

@SharkyUK was it Porsche or Ferrari who started the whole charge more for less trend? Was it the RS or the Challenge Stradale?

Well, I'm really not sure... they are as bad as each other! :ROFLMAO:

I think they decided to take Colin Chapman's famous utterance and monetise it, i.e. "Simplify, and then add lightness... and another £50k on top of list price..."

(That 50k premium becoming a 200k premium once the flippers get their mitts on it of course, not that I'm bitter). :rolleyes::ROFLMAO:
 
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