Review: Renault Clio Sport Tourer

Superminis are all well and good, until it's time for a spot of load-lugging: you might start wishing you'd bought a bigger vehicle. . .

That's why I've never really understood why there are so few small estates on the market: the supermini with that little extra bit of room has always seemed a logical car to me.

It took Renault some 17 years to come up with an estate version of its popular Clio.

And it probably wishes it had done so earlier, as the Sport Tourer has proved very popular since making its debut at the end of 2007.

In 2008, its first full year on sale, family buyers snapped up more than 50,000 models, accounting for nearly one in five of all European Clio sales.

The Turkish-built Sport Tourer has since had a facelift to give it more of a Laguna/Megane look, along with revised engines and specification.

The design of the car cleverly disguises the extra length of the Sport Tourer: it looks more like an elongated hatch rather than a boxy estate.

But it retains its principal asset of adding a useful dollop of practicality to the regular Clio's virtues of comfort, safety and refinement.

The Sport Tourer range offers a choice of two trims, Expression or Dynamique, and three engines.

The test model was the 1.5 litre dCi Dynamique flagship which is not cheap at over £16,000 on the road but does come with plenty of equipment, notably an integrated Carminat Tom Tom satellite navigation system.

While the boot of the regular Clio is reasonable for its class at 288 litres, the Sport Tourer's load space is 50 per cent larger at 439 litres and when the rear seats are folded down a sizeable area of 1,277 litres opens out.

Not only that, there's a further 'drawer' beneath the boot floor and the low sill makes loading goods a straightforward business.

The estate has a well-built cabin with a soft-touch dash and quality switchgear.

The seats are comfortable but the steering wheel does not adjust for reach, which may make it awkward for taller drivers to settle themselves behind the wheel.

The 1.5 diesel is an excellent power unit: smooth, refined and, as befits its eco2 badging, very economical.

Most drivers should be able to achieve 55mpg with ease.

There's a sporty short throw gearbox but no sixth gear, which might become wearing for those who do a lot of motorway miles.

The built-in Tom Tom is straight forward to use and works off a hand-held remote rather than controls on the dashboard.

Not only does it give directions using either address or postcode, it also sounds a hooter when you're around a hundred yards from a speed camera.

The near six-inch screen is neatly incorporated into the centre of the dash and the system is covered by the car's warranty.

There are four option packs available with the Sport Tourer offering a range of comfort, styling and storage features.

The price of this top spec model takes the Sport Tourer close to Megane territory but the range starts at a more manageable £12,500.

Anyone needing a four-seater car with extra boot space could do worse than check out this version of the Clio.

It's decent to drive and should be cheap to run.

A low BiK rate of 13 per cent will also boost its appeal to company 'user-chooser' drivers.