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A standard 172 is great. Small light hatch with a decent sized grunty 4 banger. Had tonnes of torque and averaged mid 30's mpg as a result. Great little cars.
Mine was set up for track time so had bigger wheels, smaller tyres, coilovers, solid engine mounts and a ktec exhaust. All of that amounted to a droney motorway experience, but it was worth it to push m3's around mondello park.
I've had my fun with most of the fun 90's motors over the past few years, but it's so nice to have a comfortable new car with a warranty and just pay someone else to work on it. That said I have a hankering for a ktr arb, catback and remap. A 260bhp Clio would be many lols.
Colm89-
Mine was set up for track time so had bigger wheels, smaller tyres, coilovers, solid engine mounts and a ktec exhaust. All of that amounted to a droney motorway experience, but it was worth it to push m3's around mondello park.
I'm not yet at the stage where I'm bored of getting my hands dirty and ear plugs are just another process (might happen at some point) so the idea behind the 172 is to make it sharper rather than comfortable. What you described is nearly what I want, but not fundamentally that brutal.
I want the car to resemble a wasp out of corners. So paramount to me would be damping, good rubber and to let it breathe a bit more.
My only hesitation is that most seem to have been owned by either track fiends, or racer boys, so mileage is high on most.
Chak
Sweet Jesus, it's amazing to think that Launch Control is optional on a hatchback these days.
I suppose since the big Europeans share platforms a lot these days, there will be a lot of refinement.
You've gone through quite some tasteful cars. How was the 172 to run as a daily? I really want a ph2 as a general use vehicle. Alas, I can't just do a box, I still want to have a heavy foot without seeing lights behind me and en early 2000's hatch seems like a good option.