Renaultsport Mégane 250 Cup, £21,995

Meet the latest and hottest Mégane to emerge from Renaultsport, the company’s motor sports division. This is the car that will take the fight to, among others, Ford’s gloriously hooligan Focus RS.

You certainly won’t mistake the Renaultsport 250 for the ordinary Mégane. Generously flared wheelarches, sill extensions, a large central exhaust and the now de rigueur rear diffuser give the fastest Mégane the right amount of swagger. And in another nod to current fashion, there are bright LED running lights up front.

Overall, though, the Mégane’s looks are a good deal more restrained than those of the Focus RS (that’s not difficult). The car I drove had optional 19-inch wheels, though, which looked to me like the result of a bad-taste moment at an accessories shop.

You can order your Mégane Renaultsport 250 in one of two guises — the regular, at £22,995, or the Cup, at £21,995. The Cup version is the more hardcore of the two, with stiffer springs, dampers and anti-roll bar and a limited-slip differential. The more expensive regular version is better equipped, but don’t get the idea that the Cup is a stripped-out racer. In fact, it weighs exactly the same as its sibling. Both will hit 62mph in 6.1sec and have a top speed of 156mph.

The Cup is devastatingly quick across very challenging roads. That limited-slip differential really helps to put the power down, and torque steer, which can plague powerful front-drivers, is almost totally eliminated. The body control through fast dips and over crests was first rate, the steering communicative and reassuring and the performance from that 247bhp 2-litre turbo is pulse-quickening. It has three electronic stability levels, which vary from lots of electronic intervention to none, and a throttle response ranging from normal to extra-aggressive. Depends on your mood, really.

Some might miss the rawness and immediacy of the previous hot Mégane, but the new car is based on a more sophisticated and refined platform, so it’s bound to lose a bit of that punk edginess. In fact, when your hair’s not on fire, the Mégane 250 is a fine motorway cruiser, with the one caveat that the Cup, on bigger 19-inch wheels, can be pretty uncomfortable over undulating and broken surfaces.

And Renault doesn’t want you to forget its motor-sport heritage. The Cup car in particular is meant for track-day action, and you can specify it with an onboard telemetry system, which measures g-force, lap times and acceleration times so you can prove what a hero you are.

Even though it doesn’t have quite the hooligan appeal of its predecessors, or the Focus RS for that matter, the Renaultsport 250 Cup is good-looking, fast, refined and not just for boy racers.

THE RIVALS

Ford Focus RS, £26,995

For Absolutely blinding cross-country pace