No, that is not a typo, you can indeed spend £72k on a new Renault Megane!.

Reading an article in October's issue of Car magazine, i came upon the 'Sports car of the year 2019' grand test. Included in this is the Megane, and i actually laughed out loud at the price. The car in question is the Megane Trophy R, which as 'standard' costs £51k, but if you add the carbon wheels (£12k) and carbon ceramic brakes (£9k), the price is £72k!.

Here is a link to Autocar's online review,

www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/renault/megane-rs-tro...r

This car is classed as a hot hatch (albeit an extreme one), but i have a bit of a problem with that designation. Why?, because it doesn't have rear seats!. To me, the main USP of a hot hatch is practicality. You can cane it along a country road, but you can also load it up with the kids and luggage to go on holiday with it.

Now this ain't the first time Renault have removed the rear seats on a megane, they've doen it at least twice before, but at least in previous versions the car was a 3 door, and in the most recent version, did look vaguely coupe-ish with its more rakish lines than the 5 door. But the current Megane does not come as a 3 door, so this 2 seater has 5 doors!.

The car seems to sit in a 'no-mans-land' between proper 2 seat coupes such as a Porsche Cayman or Renaults own Alpine A110 (both of which can be had from around £45k), and proper hardcore sports/track day cars, like a Caterham (available from around £26.5k or an Ariel Atom (prices are a bit elusive, but certainly from under £40k).

So i really don't get it!. Not so much because of the price as, if i had plenty of money i'd have no issues spending £70+k on a car. Just got no idea who'd spend that sort of money on a Renault Megane rather than one of the aforementioned coupe's or track focussed cars?.

Incidentally, in that same magazine article, one of the other contenders was the Porsche Cayman GT4. This (unlike 'bread and butter' Cayman's) has a n/a 4.0 flat six developing 414bhp. The cost of it (with no options), £75k.