Hi everyone, TL;DR: For an RHD-LHD conversion for Megane RS, is it required to have an LHD Megane RS donor or a non-RS would be enough in terms of required parts? I'm currently looking to get myself a Renault Megane RS, the ideal car would be PH2 from 2014-2016, Liquid Yellow/Red/White, Cup, Recaros which I plan to use as both daily driver/track with a budget of 14.000-17.000 EUR. Alternatively, I'm also open to the idea of an early 250 CUP in the range of 6.000-9.000 EUR to use as a track car and save the rest for a more usual daily. The only problem is that given the specs I'm looking after, it narrows quite a lot the available options for the LHD market (I'm not from the UK). I've been looking for these specs for more than 6 months I could count the viable candidates on fingers from one hand as most cars within budget have incomplete service history, require immediate attention, are non-cup (I don't care that much about Recaros but Cup is must have). I checked the UK market and very surprisingly there are plenty cars, mostly are quite clean, and the prices are well within my budget. The only thing is somehow they have many owners for the mileage compared to their LHD counterparts but I don't really care as long as they come with full service checkbook. I'm exploring the conversion option considering that given what I'm seeing I can realistically get a 275 for 14.000-15.000 EUR allowing me 2.000 EUR for the conversion. Am I complicating myself too much and I should just give in and increase the budget? Thanks!
Where are you from? There is tons of LHD Megs in Europe. Would be easier to adjust your search parameters. Rather buy a Cup without Recaro's and retrofit them for example, instead of buying an RHD one with the correct spec and have to build it to LHD.
I'm from Romania, looking on Germany/Belgium/Netherlands/France car sites and the cheapest PH2 Meg is at 17.000 EUR (which is a questionable, non-cup one). The "good" ones are usually within 20.000-23.000 EUR range. By good I mean not have more than 100.000 Miles, complete service history and be at least CUP (not mentioning color or Recaros). I can't justify paying anywhere close to those prices as I could find some early Mk4 RS's for 23.000-25.000 EUR. By comparison, in the UK I'm seeing a 265 PH2 meg at 8000 GBP which would be around 9300 EUR. It has full service history and a decent mileage, by the looks of it, it's a non-cup but at this price I wouldn't mind (not gonna lie, the price looks a bit too good to be true, but you never know). Generally CUP, <100.000 miles, with service history and which look decently maintained are within 12.000-15.000 GBP range which would be around 14.000-17.000 EUR range I mentioned in my OG post. Let's take the example of the 8000 GBP (9300 EUR) one (unless it's a total wreck). If I get it for that money, spend another 500 EUR with transportation, 500 EUR paperwork and and ~1700 EUR on conversion, I'd have a PH2 Meg with 70.000 miles (120.000 km) for 12.000 EUR which would be an absolute steal. My main problem is that I don't know if a normal Meg would do the trick for the conversion (especially the wiring part). I had a non-RS Meg coupe PH1 and the dashboard had the slots for buttons in the lower left side (where the ESP is) so I won't have to carve the dashboard for the RS and/or other buttons, but I don't know if it's only missing the module or the wiring too. Also, would the steering rack or other mechanical bits be the same for an RS as with an non-RS one? If I need an LHD RS to source the parts from I will drop the idea completely since wrecks are even more rarer than these cars, but if it's possible with non-RS parts, seems like a good deal (I suppose).
Something you may have overlooked, are the non rs and rs shells the same? Could well be additional bracing or welding on an rs model.
I understand your point of view. Cars in the UK look really cheap compared to Europe. Not sure what the rules and cost are regarding import in Romania, but you will have to pay some sort of VAT I assume I think the conversion will be more expensive then the 1700 you took. You need headlights, doorcards, dashboard, centre console, steering rack, pedalbox, carpet and the list goes on and on. And then there's the part of the looms in the doors and under the seats that might be different, not even starting about the whole loom in the dashboard.
Luck struck me and I got my hands on a really beautiful 275 Trophy locally here (which keeps dying randomly at traffic lights or low speeds, but I guess these quirks come with the brand). I fully agree with @Poppaboost , might have overlooked the shell aspect (though there are few 220s converted from RHD to LHD for sale here) so I thought something similar might be possible with 250/265/275. Ultimately, I have to agree with you all that even though there is a considerable price difference between RHD/LHD cars, it's not worthwhile exploring the conversion option since you need many parts which seemingly can't be sourced that easy...
