It was launched in , and entered its fifth generation in The Clio has had substantial critical and commercial success, being consistently one of Europe's top-selling cars since its launch, [ 1 ] and it is largely credited with restoring Renault's reputation and stature after a difficult second half of the s. The Clio is one of only two cars, the other being the Volkswagen Golf , to have been voted European Car of the Year twice, in and The car is named after Clio , one of the nine Muses in Greek mythology.
In Japan, it is sold as the Renault Lutecia [ 2 ] because Honda retains the rights to the name Clio after establishing the Honda Clio sales channel in Lutecia is derived from the name of Lutetia , an ancient Roman city that was the predecessor of Paris.
The Renault Lutecia was formerly available through Yanase Co. Following Renault's takeover, distribution rights for the Lutecia were handed over to Nissan locations in and sold at Nissan Red Stage locations. Renault had replaced its R5 supermini with a completely redesigned model which had similar styling to the original in , but soon afterwards began working on an all-new supermini to take the company into the s.
It was eventually decided that the new car would feature a name designation, rather than the numeric model designations which Renault had traditionally used β this would be adopted across the entire Renault range by Cars like the Fuego coupe launched in had been an exception to this rule, and the last "numeric" Renault was the 19 , launched in , and by the end of the numeric model designations had completely disappeared from the Renault range in Western Europe.
The Clio was introduced at the Paris Motor Show in June and sales in France and the rest of the continent began then, although sales in right-hand drive Britain did not begin until March The Clio was the replacement to the hugely successful Renault 5 , although this car remained in production until at a factory in Slovenia , where some versions of the Clio were later built.
