Mégane Renault Sport: geared to driving pleasure

Mégane Renault Sport, available in both 3- and 5-door versions, is an elegant sporting thoroughbred. It provides the comfort and quietness of a grand tourer, in addition to a number of subdued, elegant sporting elements: extended wrap-around bumpers, more prominent foglamps, large air-intake grilles and a twin-pipe exhaust.

Mégane Renault Sport has a host of technical features such as tyre pressure monitoring, cruise control and speed limiter, electrochromic inside rearview mirror, and automatic headlamps and wipers. Mégane Renault Sport is equipped with the hands-free Renault Card, an audio unit built into the facia with four speakers distributed around the cabin, and with either of two on-board navigation systems, Carminat Guidance or Carminat Advanced Navigation, as an option.

Mégane Renault Sport has a turbocharged 2.0 16V engine. Its output of 225bhp and 300Nm of torque are achieved thanks to changes to key items such as the turbo and the engine’s reciprocal components. With 90% of its maximum torque available between 2,000 and 6,000rpm, the engine provides strong and continuous power up to the highest speeds. Equipped with a specific twin-exhaust system, engine noise has been reduced to provide true acoustic comfort. It features a six-speed manual gearbox.

The accent is on high performance: with an acceleration time of 6.5sec to 100kph and 26.7sec to cover 1 kilometre from a standing start, Mégane Renault Sport provides excellent efficiency, with fuel consumption of only 8.8 litres/100km in the combined cycle (209g of CO2/km). The engine also complies with the Euro 4 fiscal-incentive emissions standard.

A double-axis strut system has been developed to guarantee precise and efficient roadgoing behaviour in all circumstances. The braking system, powerful and fade-resistant, consists of four large-diameter discs (312mm ventilated at the front and 300mm at the rear) of significant thickness (28mm at the front and 11mm at the rear), coupled with 4- piston calipers for the front brakes. The latest-generation ESP with traction control and understeer control logic has been adjusted to suit the sporting character of the vehicle.

Mégane Renault Sport is equipped with the same range of safety features which enabled New Mégane to achieve a five-star rating in the tests carried out by the independent Euro NCAP consortium.

Mégane Renault Sport is equipped with the third-generation Renault System for Restraint and Protection (SRP), which combines adaptive frontal airbags with adaptive safety belts, as well as double load limiters and double pretensioners for the front seats*, two side airbags for thorax protection, also for the front seats, and two curtain airbags. The three-door version is equipped with anti-submarining airbags within its front seats to protect against submarining and provide the same level of front occupant safety as in the five-door version. The front passenger seat and the rear side seats are fitted with Isofix attachments allowing front or rear-facing child safety seats to be installed in an optimum manner. Mégane Renault Sport has all it takes to become the benchmark in terms of safety within the sporting hatchback segment.

Mégane Renault Sport is assembled at the Dieppe site in France using bodies supplied from Renault’s Palencia plant in Spain.

Story by Renault