of the avant-garde oddity of the previous car and settled into a sleek, sexy shape that is almost un-French in its conventional good looks. That is a good thing, by the way, unless you are into weird things like eating amphibian appendages, small moustaches and Citroen 2CVs. This particular car actually started life as the (slightly) lesser Cup version of the RS265 and was optioned up to Trophy spec by New Zealand distributor, Motorcorp, except for one thing; the wheels. Motorcorp chose to leave the RS265 on the Cup's 18-inch alloys, rather than ruin the ride by upgrading to the Trophy's 19s. This is a good thing in every way, not the least visually, because the ratio between wheel, wheel arch and tyre visible seems just about right on the 18s. Plus the 19s would have completely shitted up the ride... Inside Inside is even less avant-garde/weird-for-the-sake-of-it, to the point of being slightly bland and generic. But perhaps the most anti-Gaelic thing about the interior is the remarkable amount of buttons and switches that are in sensible, usable places. Okay, sure, there is still the odd reassuringly-French howler -- especially the placement of the silly key-card thing that means, if you have a keyring attached, it WILL rattle on centre console -- but generally speaking, Renault seems to have come over all ergonomically sensible for a change. It does, however, leave the RS265's interior looking a but grey and bland, despite the attempts to spice things up a bit with