The original Clio, launched at the 1990 Paris Motor Show to replace the Renault 5, though it shared the 5’s floorpan and suspension design rather than starting fresh.[1] It won European Car of the Year for 1991 and, in the UK, became a fixture of television advertising through the “Papa and Nicole” campaign.
The car sold here as an everyday hatchback was joined in 1993 by the Clio Williams, a homologation special named for the Renault-powered Williams Formula One team, which had no hand in designing it; the work was Renault Sport’s. Renault built far more Williamses than the 3,800 homologation requirement, then kept building “Williams 2” and “Williams 3” editions to meet demand, to the annoyance of early buyers promised exclusivity. Kerb weight is recorded here only for the base range: Wikipedia’s infobox gives a single figure for the whole generation, and no separate weight is published for the heavier 16V or Williams.
