It was a revised version, just like the one I'm in. I daren't power too hard through the slithery bends, because ends will surely swap. Yes, the wheelbase is longer (by 23mm, rearwards) the front track is wider (by 33mm), much has happened to the suspension and we're travelling on a new design of Michelin Pilot Sport tyres (like a Porsche GT3's). But I'm still apprehensive. Frankly, right now a Clio 172 would lower both heart rate and lap times.

There's a long, open right-hander and I'm pushing as hard as I dare. Behind me, 255bhp of V6 is moving along its near-flat torque curve, and I'm aware of the front wheels drifting wide. More power to make the tail drift and tighten our trajectory? It doesn't work; there's just more frontal slippage, so something significant has changed. Not much chance of spinning on this bend, then, but holding the right course is a knife-edge activity. The Clio V6/wet road combination still concentrates the mind.

There's a tight left now, so brake brake brake. It's very slippery here, the ABS triggers disconcertingly easily and I nearly miss the corner. The Clio in front (driven by a staffer on a high-circulation car-laddism monthly, you'll be amused to know) just has. Are these front wheels doing anything useful?

Next lap, I discover what might be the solution. Try harder, be less scared. Going into a corner more quickly increases the weight transfer at the back, and if you can keep that up the understeer retreats. Braking harder on the slippery surfaces transfers weight forwards more effectively during the time the wheels are gripping, making them bite better through the water so there's less ABS action. In other words, do the opposite to what's instinctive and this back-to-front Clio starts to make sense.

The problem with the first version is that it didn't really make sense even when conditions were in its favour. It looked like a piece of auto-eroticism but the reality was an engine which felt overwhelmed by the Clio's considerable weight, gearing better suited to cruising than bruising, and steering which felt both slow-witted and a touch detached. Which was not what you wanted with a tetchy handling balance.

So here's the remake, remade in France instead of Sweden (the original was assembled by TWR in Sweden). Power has risen from 230 to 255bhp, the engine now zaps joyfully to 7200rpm to help make the most of shorter gearing and closer ratios, and the chassis has had a serious workover.

The Clio's original 3-litre V6 - a joint-venture Renault-Peugeot unit - initially couldn't be persuaded to deliver more than 230bhp without further substantial investment. However, Porsche has now helped fix the engine.

The usual route to low-rev torque with high-rev power is variable valve timing with variable-resonance inlet manifolding. This engine has the first of these, as it does in standard form, but not the second. Instead, valve lift is much higher, the inlet tracts are short and wide, the throttle valve has a 40 per cent larger cross-sectional area, the valves and ports are gas-flowed, the valve springs are stronger and the air filter is freer-flowing. So how does it get its low-end torque? Through the valve timing.

Now, the chassis. As well as the wheelbase and track changes, the rear subframe is more rigid and the rear trailing arms are 10mm longer for less geometric variation as the wheels move. The front castor angle is up to six degrees, which is a lot; the idea is to give a greater increase in steering weight with rising cornering forces, and improve on-centre feel. The front anti-roll bar is stiffer, as are the front springs.

Overall front roll stiffness is more than doubled, a significant change given that the rear springs are only slightly stiffened and there's still no rear anti-roll bar (it would reduce traction out of corners). No wonder it understeers in the wet. Finally, the bump stops are longer, softer and so more progressive in their action: the sudden contacting of the old ones was one reason for the old car's abrupt on-limit behaviour. 'Porsche uses a similar solution,' says Clio V6 project guru Fabrice Cutarella.

The parts you see are hugely improved, too. A new bonding process invisibly joins the glassfibre rear wings to the remains of the steel Clio shell and the stamped-composite door skins to the original Clio doors within, so there are no more ugly seams. The trim in the two-seater cabin has much more leather and soft-touch surfacing, including the now-padded engine cover (it was cheap, hard, shiny plastic before). And there's a range of extra-leather trim packs and alternative paint finishes if you want to spend more than the ΂£26,995 list price (a rise of ΂£1000).

The landscape has dried, and we're out on the road now. And I'm wondering if this is the same car, because its steering feels keen, the understeer has vanished and the Clio Renault Sport V6 255 is spearing through bends as though sucked to the road. I can feel the ebb and flow of grip that the old car glossed over, I can discover the Michelins' massive adhesion that even a full-bore second-gear bend-exit won't breach. I can trust the mad mutant Clio at last.

And I can revel in an engine whose broadband energy eradicates the awareness of mass that dulled the previous Clio V6, even though the new one weighs slightly more (1400kg in all, a heck of a lot for a little car). The throttle response is just right, and the sound is a treat all the way from a low-revs, Jaguar D-type-like bass-spatter, past a 4000rpm larynx-opening to a 7000rpm howl. Lovely, and not too loud to live with.

Gearchange? Short, sweet and six-speed. Ride? Remarkably absorbent despite the stiffer springs, with a hint of nose-bobbing to remind you where the engine is. Brakes? Indomitable, wetness notwithstanding. Turning circle? Dreadful; there has to be a snag somewhere.

I'm loving this Clio. It may be neither as bombastic nor as foolproof as an Evo VIII, but it does exactly what it looks as if it should do. And it involves you right in the middle of the doing, with no electronic stability or traction aids to bail you out.

Then it starts to rain again. I drive over a slippery patch mid-corner, and the front wheels seem momentarily on ice. Jekyll and Hyde. The important thing is to remember who is who.