THE hottest Megane variant gets a facelift with a boost in power and torque, courtesy of the engineers at Renault Sport.

Originally designed to meet a tender from the French gendarmes who wanted a replacement for their Subaru WRX pursuit cars, the RS265 raises power output of the turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol four-cylinder engine by 11kW over the outgoing RS250, to 195kW, while torque goes up 20Nm, to 360Nm.

While the sheet metal remains the same, the grille and interior have been tweaked to freshen up the muscular three-door ‘coupe’, that now comes in a broader range of variants, starting with the RS265 Cup at $42,640 and topping out with the luxury RS265 Trophy+ at $51,640.

As well, Renault has introduced a limited-edition RS265 Trophy 8:08, referring to the fastest lap of Germany's Nurburgring by a production front-drive car in testing for the RS265 in 2011.

This model comes with the same sticky Bridgestone Potenza tyres used in the hot lap, along with other goodies, for $49,990. Only 100 units of this variant will be imported.