If you are considering shopping for a new car this weekend and fancy a hatchback, you might want to head to your local Renault dealer.

To celebrate the Renault Clio’s 20th anniversary, Renault is selling 1,000 new Renault Clio 1.2 Extreme models for £7,450 this weekend - the same price the equivlent Clio RL 1.2 model would have been in the 1990s.

The current list price of the Clio 1.2 Extreme is £11,040, so this offer represents a saving that’s probably more than you could normally get, even with killer haggling skills!

I’ve had a quick search around the internet new car websites and the closest I can find to this deal is around £8,500 for a similar Clio Extreme – so Renault’s deal is definitely a good one. To find your nearest Renault dealer, click here.

Realising that the Clio is 20 years old has made me think not just about my own increasing age but also about how much small cars like the Clio have changed over the last two decades. My first car was a 1990 1.1 Ford Fiesta. It was a great little car, but very basic compared to larger cars of the time. Small cars today don’t seem to be like that anymore. I recently drove a 2008 Fiesta and it had almost all of the creature comforts that you’d associate with larger cars – air con, electric windows and mirrors, good soundproofing, a decent stereo and very comfortable seats.

The other thing that’s changed, of course, is that small cars have all got much bigger. Indeed, most of the major manufacturers have introduced new sub-compact/supermini models because their original small cars aren’t that small anymore!