There are a handful of cars that have become lost in the annals of time. Looks, badge snobbery and special editions have all played their part in consigning such cars to relative obscurity. Taking the hot hatch as an example; anyone remember the Citroen ZX 16v or its rather unassuming, yet highly competent, replacement, the Xsara VTS? Probably not, given the praise lavished upon the rather more appealing looking Peugeot variants, the 306 GTi-6 and Rallye.

Two and a half years ago I was driving a perfectly adequate - yet rather dull - '02 Renault Clio dCi80, the fourth in a string of average cars owned since passing my test. However, my long-time obsession with cars meant I was about to take a turn to the fast side. At my first Clio club meet, at Oulton Park, I had a passenger ride in a much older Clio, a '94 1.8 16v. And I was smitten.

Introduced in 1991, the 16v was a Hot Hatch that ticked all the right boxes. It was quick, with a 0-60 time of 7.5sec, it was agile and it had the looks: flared arches front and back, a substantial tailpipe, roof spoiler and that vented bonnet bulge. Rallied in Group A, the 16v spent the next 3 years sweeping up the class titles. When rule changes left the 16v lacking, Renault raided the parts bin to create a 2-litre, wide-track variant. This was to become the homologation special Clio Williams, an immediate hit both on and off the rally stages and going down in history as arguably the greatest Hot Hatch ever. The 16v continued in production alongside the Williams yet its bigger brother stole the limelight, with sales of the 16v falling sharply below 1,000 and the final year seeing fewer registered than the more expensive Williams 3.

The first thing to grab my attention was the noise. Below 4,000rpm the 1.8 provides an almost Impreza-esque burble. But the real fireworks start beyond this point. A significant step up in acceleration is accompanied by a deep throated, angry roar as the car bellows its way towards the 7,200rpm redline. I was hooked; I was grinning like an idiot; I had to have one.

So at the start of 2004 the search began. What quickly became apparent were the affordable prices of the 16v compared to the Williams, and the endless list of pitfalls of owning either car. Armed with knowledge gleaned from Internet car clubs, I opted to go for an earlier, higher mileage example in the hope that many of the major jobs like cambelt changes would have already been carried out.

The second car I looked at was The One. In 449 Sports Blue (a colour shared with the Williams 1 and 2) it was a '93 phase 1 model with 106,000 miles on the clock and in need of a bit of TLC. However, a cambelt snap at 75,000 miles meant it had a re-conditioned head and it had also seen a new gearbox and clutch at 90k miles. After a test drive and close inspection, it was on a dark, cold January night that I handed over £1400 and drove my new steed home.

I must admit that halfway home I wondered whether I'd had a momentary lapse of sanity; not quite able to pilot the car in a straight line (worn steering-column bush), not knowing what my speed was (no dashboard lights) and with all the windows down to help keep the windscreen clear (no heater blowers). A few stabs of the throttle pedal soon reassured me that I wasn't completely mad.

Having insured the old girl for the same price as my outgoing diesel (£500), the work began. Over the next six months the dash was lit, the steering column renewed, the heater blower fixed, the speakers re-wired, an alternator changed, an alarm-immobiliser installed, four Goodyear Eagle F1s fitted and the tracking corrected.

It was at this point that one's better half decided to re-model the front of the car aided by the rear of a BMW 330cd. On the upside, this meant a freshly painted bumper and bonnet along with a completely new cooling system; the perennial problem of so many French cars. Then just before Christmas 2004, the car was sideswiped at a roundabout resulting in the need for a new door and another respray.

With a six-month run of good luck and some maintenance free motoring, summer 2005 saw my first foray into track day driving, with the newly established Williamsclio club, at Anglesey circuit. The end of August saw the club's second major event with a sprint day at Haynes motor museum. Placed joint fifth out of 14 cars (ten of which were Williams, two being track specials), the day certainly opened a few eyes to the talents of the 16v.

The end of 2005 saw yet more bad luck with a rear-end shunt and a disastrous MOT failure. Both rear sills were rotting due to poor repair (prior to my ownership) and the power-steering pump was on the verge of collapse. The total bill was £800. One could argue that this is the price paid for trackday-ing an older car, with several club members similarly discovering new faults after the summer's activities.

Unperturbed, January 2006 saw another track day, this time at Elvington. Daunted by the prospect of facing quicker machinery on the relatively open layout, the Clio quickly set about demonstrating its abilities to me once more - stripped-out trackday-special 205s and 309s were easily out-done, even carrying an extra passenger. The nimble chassis suited the tighter, twistier sections of circuit, cocking a rear wheel at will and constantly feeding information back about how close it was to the limit whilst still allowing a vast amount of adjustability once reached.

So that's where we stand. After two years the forgotten star is teaching me how to have fun whilst I do my best to return it to a good, standard, state of fettle; unfortunately a privilege the few remaining examples seem to have so far been denied.