Renault Clio (4th generation)
I am a big fan of the first two generations of the Renault Clio while the third and current one is a little bit ugly if you ask me. The upcoming fourth generation seems to be an entirely new car and it looks great. We’re really curious to find out how the interior cabin looks like.
Our esteemed colleagues from Auto Express have managed to obtain these two photos with the upcoming Clio, a car that as you can see will come with a new design, courtesy of the company’s new design director Laurens van den Acker. He is the author of some interesting designs, like the Captur, R-Space and the excellent DeZir.
The new front face of the Clio is quite aggressive and it has been inspired by the styling of the aforementioned DeZir, featuring a wide slatted lower grille along with sleek LED strips located below the car’s main lamps. As you can see, there are quite a few chrome accents, a more prominent Renault badge while the small rear windows give the 5-door version of the Clio a more rakish appearance, just like the subtle roof spoiler and the gently sculpted body panels.
A spokesman of the French automaker confirmed to Auto Express that the new Clio will be positioned as a supermini, unlike the Mini rival developed by Vauxhall which will be going upmarket. The car will most likely be revealed at the next edition of the Geneva Motor Show in March 2012 and it will go on sale the following summer.
Renault Clio (4th generation)
Under the hood of the 4th gen Clio will be a wide array of small and efficient turbo gasoline engines as well as diesels. The lineup has not been established yet but we should expect to see a 3-cylinder turbo, a unit similar to the one fitted to the R-Space concept.
This 0.9-liter engine produces 108 hp and has a peak torque of 160 Nm while CO2 emissions will be of only 95 g/km, managing to return 76.3 mpg UK. This excellent fuel efficiency will be achieved by implementing a “pulse start” system that allows very fast restarts. In addition, it will benefit from radio spark plugs for faster ignition along with the implementation of the EGR Boost technology to cool and reuse exhaust gases, allowing the power unit for a more efficient combustion.
After the launch of the standard Clio, the automaker will reveal a hot Renaultsport Clio version which will be most likely powered by an all-new 1.6-liter turbo engine.
Source: Auto Express
Post tags: Tags: Renault, renault clio
