Soon I'll be doing roughly 6000-7000 miles a year which frees up some resources. I love my MKII Fabia and nothing has gone wrong with it. Problem is, I've not been impressed with the aftermarket stuff available. It doesn't seem that transparent to me and development has been slow.

The car that I'm looking at getting is the Megane 250 (with cup pack). Insurance and road tax only go up marginally. To get my Fabia to where I want it would me £5500-£6000 including labour etc yet for £7-8k I can swap the Fabia and get the Megane which requires a lot less modification and is track ready.

My biggest worry is I'd no longer have a Skoda and I'd be a Frenchie outcast! :|

FFS, that's FRENCH!!!!!!!!

Your thinking is very sensible as buying a car ready to roll for your intended purpose is always a good idea. I've spent thousands of £ on modding my Ibiza tdi 130 over the last 8 1/2 years and thoroughly enjoyed it and don't regret it at all as my car is a gem to drive and can't see my self selling it for many more years.

However my next car will be built for my intended purpose from the factory as just can't see myself going through the long and expensive route of changing all the factory parts to upgraded bits so i can go faster and handle better.

The Meagan 250 cup would fit the bill nicely but as mentioned above it's FRENCH! Ahhhhh!

That puts me off. How would that car be running after say 100k miles? Would it fall apart by then?

If someone could reassure me on the longevity of a car like this i'd seriously consider one.

I thought reliability would be an issue but I've scoured the 250 forums and they've had no major problems. additionally, 250s are made at the RenaultSport factory which might help.

Interested in opinions.

As an ex Renault owner, if there were no other car manufacturers available I'd get my bike out. Even if the car has been built in a specialist factory the parts weren't, so the original design faults are still going to be there. It's no coincidence that they regularly come bottom of the customer satisfaction surveys.

I will never, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, buy another one. And, because they are now thinly disguised Renaults, I wouldn't touch another Nissan. My father had a Bluebird, which was brilliant, but these days no way.

DO IT! A hoot to drive and surprisingly well screwed together... At the end of the day, any money you spend modding a car is money you won't see again and may make the car more undesirable if you ever come to sell it.

Chris

I can see where your coming from having drivena couple of 172 clio cups and a couple of friends also have 225bhp meganes

When i drove the clio i loved it, took it for a thrash down some country back roads and didn't want to take it back, I bet they would make a real fun little track car

Before i got the vrs i did look at a couple of renaults but they were to small for what i really wanted and that badge on the front would always put me off as there not know for there reliability

if you do sell the fabia the money you save from modding it will always be there as a back up if a few things do go wrong with it altho don't the cups come with less gizmos to go wrong anyway

much as it pains me to admit it, the renaultsport cars are actually really good, they handle nice too compared to the poverty spec models, it's a shame they didn't do a gordini version like they have with the twingo and the Clio. Although it does seem a bit drastic in your case to spend out a loa of money just to go fast... my money would go on an old school Volvo s40 T5, you could probably pick one up for a couple of grand, and if you spent q few quid in the right places it would tear a Renault sport Megane a new poop hole on the road.