What you are letting yourself in for...

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As lots of people seem to have a yearning, here's the lowdown on Trophy cars

What are they?
In 1999 the Clio Trophy was introduced as a support race for the European F1 Grands Prix meetings - a similar idea to Porsche Supercup now. Renaultsport built around 120 cars that were Clio based but with the most exquisite roll cage for safety. Probably the fact that many "guest" drivers ran in the series was in their thinking but the result is almost a spaceframe and every bit as good as a modern WRC car. The engine and gearbox hang from the cage and in the front, where you all have....nothing - Trophy's have a huge steel cross section to stiffen up the shell.

All have a 3.0 V6, similar to the road car but without the trick cam-timing and with a twin-plenum injection system instead of the road cars single setup. The engines were built by Huger and were around 275bhp. The engine management was Magnetti Marelli and was sealed for the championship to ensure all the cars were "equal"

The gearboxes are 6-speed sequential Sadev dog-boxes i.e no synchromesh. They have a limited slip diff, a paddle type clutch and a bespoke flywheel.

The suspension is Bilstein all round, height adjustable only and then only scraping the ground or not scraping the ground. Some cars ran no power steering and others have an electric setup but the engine mounted pump was removed in all cases. Brakes are Brembo all round, quite conservative on the sizes, but work great - only stopping 1000kg or so helps too.

Most have only one seat as the passenger side is normally taken up by the battery and the ECU's - oh yes, for passenger side read right hand side as all the cars were left-hand drive.

Are they road legal?
No, they have no lights (or wiring looms for that matter!), they have no type approval for seat belt anchorages, air bag provision etc etc.

Can they be made road legal?
Well, anything is possible. There is nothing to stop you using a Trophy shell to reshell a damaged V6 - mine was a Renault demonstrator that got trashed. Converting one to RHD is a pain but possible. Suspension would need changing, legal lighting and switchgear.

So, is buying a Trophy car a good idea?
Well, not as a road car it isn't. It is the most uncompromising thing that you could possibly have - a Radical is more forgiving for heavens sake. They are hideously noisy, fumey, rough riding, bad mannered and thoroughly unpleasant - even if you only want to use it occasionally, (not every day to drive to work!).

It doesn't matter how hard you think it makes you look, you will look an utter tw*t at the end of even the shortest journey. Why? Because there is no air con and the only thing separating you from the engine is a sheet of glassfibre. This means that the cabin fries and your best Adidas shellsuit will be soaked through. On long stages I have serious problems with sweat dripping into my eyes and taking your hands off the wheel, even for a moment is not advisable.

If you have not driven anything with a dogbox and paddle clutch, I can assure you that manoeuvering around McDonalds drive-through is pretty difficult, even before you factor in the daft lock that makes us all look like we can't drive. However, if you want a trackday car and have something more civilised as a backup, then a Trophy is a real hoot - probably the best fun I have had (on 4 wheels!).

Prices
At the moment, a basic car in track setup (i.e trailered to events) seems to be £15-20K. Bearing in mind the price of the gearbox alone, that's not bad for a car that is pure competition built.

I'm only aware of one other that has been road registered as a rally car needs to get from one stage to another on public roads. So an MoT, road tax etc are all required. A basic rally car would I think be around £25-30K, doing all the mods like ours, probably £50K+

Most therefore seem to be trackday cars as the lack of race series for such a beast is a bit of a problem in the UK - mainland Europe seems to be more accomodating if you need to do something competitive.

The alternative in the UK is rallycross and there are about 7 or 8 that seem to have varying degrees of success in the UK. Again a basic car could be £12-15K but if you want a winner like Mike Sellars' one, think of adding another £20 or 30K.

My conclusion
As a replacement for your road car, don't bother. Get Scott to fit KW's or similar (and an exhaust system if you must!) and enjoy an iconic car.

If, however, you want something highly unusual as a competition car, then you won't find anything like a Trophy for any money