Bonus Facelift Friday: all Renault Clio facelifts in a row

After many years with a fixed spot on Friday afternoon, the section ‘Facelift Friday’ was put in the freezer with the last turn of the year. That gives you a lot of frustration and a lot of peace for the undersigned, but of course it doesn’t mean that we never want to go deeper into a facelift again.

On the contrary: nothing is more fun than nice trees over rounded or sharpened bumper corners, larger grilles and of course extra LED lighting. The Renault Clio is the perfect candidate for this. The car received a fairly extensive facelift this week, with larger LED daytime running lights, new logos and a sleeker front bumper.

To make the differences clear, we park the Clio in the well-known Facelift Friday slider. You can clearly see that the grille not only has a different layout, but has also become much wider at the bottom. Incidentally, we chose the sporty versions for both the ‘old’ and the new Clio, if only because the last Clio has only been shown with that extra tough front bumper.

But there’s more. Over the years, most other generations of the Clio have also passed in ‘Facelift Friday’, so it is quite easy to make an overview of all Clio facelifts in history.

In 1996, the original model received a more modern, rounder nose and a set of new taillights. The successor came in 1998, but was upgraded in 2001 with a set of sharper headlight units and a new front bumper. We treated it as a crazy V6 in 2015 and now show it again, but the facelift is broadly the same as that of the regular Clio.

The Clio 3 received its apparently mandatory update in 2009. The grille, which was originally split in two, was then replaced by a small, narrow ‘mailbox’, supplemented by a larger grille in the bumper.

And then came the Clio 4, the predecessor of and actually also the blueprint for the current Clio. That car is the only Clio that has never shined in ‘Facelift Friday’. The reason is obvious, because the 2016 facelift was a lot less radical than the three before and the one after. Still, quite a bit changed. For example, there is a completely new, somewhat busier front bumper and the daytime running LEDs move from the ‘grille’ to the actual headlights.

Now that all ‘Phase 1’ and ‘Phase 2’ Clios are so beautifully arranged next to and below each other, it is time to take stock. Which of these facelifts is the best in your opinion? And, perhaps more importantly, which generation of Clio is your favourite? Let’s hear it!