THE LONG GOODBYE
‘WHAT’S IT REMAPPED TO? I’M GOING FOR a thousand on mine next.’ Is this what life is like as a GT-R driver? Either way, a truly melancholic moment has been shattered. Perhaps it’s for the best. Standing on Porthmadog beach, the sun dipping towards the scenery as it casts a golden glow over a pair of true evo heroes, I’d been in danger of becoming far too poetic. Luckily a clingy onlooker possessing both an open bottle of Smirnoff and a thick Yorkshire accent has stopped anyone getting too morose. Shaky phone videos of his heavily modified Nissan performing some questionable launches put paid to the seriousness of the occasion entirely.
Why are a thirty-grand Renault and a supercar-baiting Nismo having a romantic rendezvous, anyway? Well, both the Mégane RS and the GT-R have recently left UK showrooms. For good, at least in any form we’ll truly recognise them in. Renault Sport has in fact ceased trading, though it’s mostly been a case of its engineers changing into Alpine fleeces and editing their email signatures. Nissan’s venerable super-coupe continues in production, but Britain is among a number of markets where looming regulations have euthanised its presence after a 14-year run. Yes, fourteen.
It’s a shame 2019’s mighty, track-focused Mégane 300 Trophy-R wasn’t a run-out special for 2022; it might have lent this shoot some delightful colour-coded track-special symmetry. At the R’s launch, just a year after the base Mk4 Mégane RS had arrived, an engineer confided it was ‘now or never’ in terms of tightening rules. So what we’ve ended up with is a pair of cars in somewhat incongruous farewell costume. A mighty all-weather GT dressed
