Renault chose Manchester airport as the slightly unusual launch venue for the new Clio Renaultsport 182 Cup. It’s the final resting place of one of the British Airways Concordes, and nestled under its elegant wings is a compact ball of nuclear-orange hot-hatch energy that threatens to upstage this graceful old bird. The Clio Cup looks like it’ll hit Mach Two.

Once away from the Concorde and out into the surrounding countryside, the Clio completely kidnaps your consciousness. Renault believes the Cup to be two tenths of a second quicker to 60mph from rest than the regular 182 Sport. We achieved a staggering 6.4sec for that car, so factor in ideal conditions and a near-perfect getaway and you could be looking at a 6.0sec car. For £13,800.

This is the second Cup version of the Clio. The original Cup – based on the then range-topping 172 Sport – was a homologation special designed to allow Renault into Group N rallying. The new car is nothing more than a nice sales idea, and that’s worrying in itself: performance cars that lose their original competition raison d’etre can lose their focus with later iterations. Consider the relative normality of the 1600cc Peugeot 106 Rallye against the original, bespoke 1300cc screamer; the battle-hardened and deeply scary Porsche 993 GT2 versus the slick but soulless current GT2.