Renault Clio Cabrioni – From the Old Box

1993 was the year in which Fiat appeared with the Punto Cabriolet. That was truly something special. After all, those looking for a B-segmenter that could also be driven fully open did not have much choice. The Peugeot 205 Cabriolet was, next to the larger and more expensive Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet, the most obvious alternative at that time, although the 205 was already a bit old. The much younger Renault Clio was not available as a convertible and Renault left a gap in the market there, according to Cabrioni, based in Huissen. That is why the company decided to turn it into a convertible itself.

In short, Cabrioni put the saw in the roof of the three-door Renault Clio behind the B-pillars and removed everything above the lower window line. The front part of the roof, just behind the windscreen, also cleared the field. To keep things structurally strong, Cabrioni installed a sturdy tubular frame that linked the B-pillars to each other and to the rear of the car. You could pull a fabric cover over it by hand from back to front, which of course also had ‘windows’. “Actually, the construction is most reminiscent of that of an open off-road vehicle,” we found.

Renault Clio Convertible.

Pros and cons

We weren’t entirely thrilled with how it looked with the roof up. “You prefer to drive this car open, because when closed it does not exactly deserve the beauty prize.” Fortunately, it wasn’t really a complicated matter to lower the roof: “After a few tries, you will have mastered breaking down the hood. Before detaching the hood from the bracket, unzip the side pieces and place it on the roof , fold the front part over it, with a light pressure on the rear window fold the whole thing onto the parcel shelf and apply the cover. The whole operation takes a few minutes on your own.”

How did that drive, such a refurbished Clio? Well, we found the Renault Clio Cabrioni to drive clearly less well than the closed original. “Cabrioni saws open a closed Clio, but does not strengthen the underside. On bad road surfaces, it is therefore very noticeable that the stiffness of the body is less than is the case with most factory convertibles. You really shouldn’t be surprised by a rattle.” What was good again, was the peace in the car. The wind got remarkably little influence on the interior of the Clio Cabrioni: “Driving homeless at around 130 km/h is no problem at all, especially if you leave one door window up. The hood cover will flap, but it won’t budge. “

“It’s a bit of a mess on the parcel shelf. The hood cover, however, ensures that everything stays neatly in place.”

More choice at Cabrioni

All in all, we didn’t think it was a crazy conversion at all and we could imagine that people were up for this. It was a fairly expensive conversion: you lost 9,500 guilders for it and then of course you had to deliver a Clio yourself. “However, for that money you will not find the wind-in-the-hair feeling for four people anywhere, unless it were one of the other Cabrioni products.” After all, you could also knock on the door for an open Fiat Panda, Peugeot 106, Austin Mini and Fiat Uno.