You see them milling about almost everyday doing general everyday things. The hatchback is the staple of the British motoring diet as they are well priced and practical for a whole manner of applications. You see them with a fridge-freezer poking out their boot, or packed full of children and dogs. So why am I am I hailing the workhorse of the road as the best thing on wheels?
You see I also love performance cars, as does every other red blooded male. The attention to detail ascertained through a never ending search for speed is amazing to see forged in metal. Their sculpted shapes are icons that are pinned to children’s walls, stared at through showroom windows, and snapped up by our camera phones. Behind the wheel of these machines you feel such a sense of occasion as you burble off onto the open road. They provoke emotion as they howl and twist the very fabric of physics. But in all honesty, though these times are fantastic, they are few and far between. Most of the time you are treating the car as if it is made of glass, just pottering in fear of speed bumps or a gap that isn’t quite big enough to fit a Ferrari 458. This is where the hot-hatch comes into play…
You see being based on a hatchback these machines are just as usable as the standard model. You can see out of the windows, you get more than 11MPG and better still your woman can still fit all of her clutter in the boot. A hot hatchback provides all the supercar thrills of being thrown back into your seat with the tyres screeching but in a much more accessible way. To get the most from a Lamborghini you really have to push it and 97% of the time you just cant do that on the road. Getting that tingling sensation from a Focus ST, however, simply requires you to work the gearbox a bit harder and flex your right foot. I guarantee that after a month the novelty of a supercar will have worn off and you will see a man in his bright yellow Megane RS, having just dropped the kids off at school, enjoying a blast down that narrow country lane you are terrified of.
With this wave of next-gen ASBO endusers well underway, the future is bright for the hot-hatch, and that isn’t just because you can buy one in orange.
