Renault Mégane RS 280
Price £27,810
0-62mph 5.8 secs
Top speed 155mph
MPG 40.9
CO2 163g/km

“You’ll never lose that one in the car park,” laughs a customer at our local supermarket. The colour is “Volcanic Orange”, but it could as easily have been called “Sainsbury’s Orange”. His wife joins in. She’s less positive. She grimaces: “Urrgh, that really is awful!”

I’m amazed for two reasons: first, they don’t know me and don’t know that this isn’t actually my car, yet they’re happy to be rude about it. And, second, they are both so, so wrong. The car looks fantastic.

I am biased. The first car I ever owned was a bright orange Renault (I bought it for £15 – it had sliding rear windows and moss growing in the boot). The fact that, 30 years later, I am now once again sitting in a bright orange Renault gives my heart a jolt of pleasure. However, that jolt could as easily be explained by the fact that this new Mégane RS 280 is one of the most exhilarating hot hatches you’ll ever drive. The orange paint job is perfect: rather than a go-faster stripe, it feels like the entire car is wreathed in go-fasterness (is that even a word?). And it’s not just the colour that makes your eyes pop: it is clear from every angle that this is a machine that means what it says. It has a predatory, intense look about it, like an enraged bouncer who is just about to lose it and chuck you and your mates out of the nightclub. You get the picture. But just in case you miss any of these design cues, Renault has laid on a distinctive jingle that plays as you settle into your suede bucket seats – it’s a sort of deep animal growl which fades into thumping heartbeat. It wouldn’t be out of place at your local Odeon. Once you are settled, hit the ignition button and the show really gets under way.

Racebred hot hatches aim to be all things to all families: driver-centred and involving, but with a boot and rear seats. Mostly they fail as, to be honest, anyone who buys a kick-ass hatch doesn’t really care about anyone but themselves. But the Mégane is different. The boot is sizable; the rear seats are roomy. More importantly the car can be driven in a respectful way – you don’t need to joggle your passengers’ brains out. However, when you find yourself on your own with a long stretch of tarmac unfurling ahead of you, that’s when you switch to “Race” mode and scare yourself half to death.

Powering all this fun is a remarkably efficient, turbocharged 1.8-litre engine. The Mégane RS also uses Renault’s 4Control four-wheel steering to enhance cornering. I can’t say I noticed. I think it may be one of those technical benefits from which only the more gifted of drivers will benefit. And that’s not me. There’s also the RS Monitor Expert, which enables drivers to film and record their driving prowess on their smartphones and later overlay the vehicle’s telemetry information on to the video, so you can have a proper geek-out with your mates in the bar. And that’s really not me, either.

With incendiary performance and a paint job to match, this Renault costs exactly £27,795.00 more than my first one – and it’s worth every single penny.

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@MartinLove166