Category: Affordable Sports 
Price Range: £11,995 to £11,995
Sharp drive with Cup chassis, good ride without.
Needs pricey but entertaining Cup chassis.
Misses out on the charm of Fiat's 500 Abarth, but delivers with Cup's drive.
The Renault Twingo is one of the most competent city cars on the market, but in the ever-changing city class 'competent' is not nearly enough. Just look at the best-selling city car in Europe, the Fiat 500. It's taken the class by storm and makes the Renault look a little staid.
Time to re-address the balance: enter the Renaultsport Twingo.
This is the 'hot' version of the Twingo and the idea is to blow the rivals into the weeds. Wider, lower and stockier, it's rare for such a diminutive car to have this much aggression, emphasised further still by the wheelarch-filling 17" alloys (if you plump for the £650 Cup chassis).
Under the bonnet the turbocharged 1.2-litre wasn't thought man enough for the job, ditched for a normally aspirated 131bhp 1.6-litre.
Performance is brisk, with the 133 sprinting to 62mph in 8.7 seconds and onto 125mph, but the enemy has already outflanked Renault. Fiat's new 500 Abarth is a second quicker still, but that's just performance stats - it's the driving experience that will tip the balance when directly comparing the two.
Pricing for the RS 133 begins at £11,550.
