Fastest Hot Hatches You Can Buy Right Now!
The definition of a hot hatch is ‘a high performance variant of a standard hatchback model’ it’s a pretty boring description to most people but to us petrol heads it marks a very special type of car. Hot hatches are most petrol heads’ first access to real performance and have cemented many young motorists’ love affair with cars and driving.
The progenitor of the hot hatch was, of course, the mark one Volkswagen Golf GTI . With 108 horsepower on tap, the Golf sprinted to 62mph in only 8.9 seconds and straight into the history books. In 2016 though, hot hatches can offer you performance that you might not believe.
In order to sort the wheat from the chaff and see which hatch stands atop the pyramid we have ranked the five fastest below, enjoy!
Volkswagen Golf R (£31,000)
A Golf with 300bhp? Surely that’s a typo right? Well, actually it’s true; couple this with a sophisticated all wheel drive system and dual clutch gearbox and the Golf is startlingly fast. How fast you ask?
How does 0-62mph in 4.9 seconds sound? Oh and you’ll keep accelerating all the way up to a limited 155mph top speed.
BMW M135i (£31,000)
322 horsepower… all going to the rear wheels! BMW does rear drive fun like no one else and this car is the modern incarnation of classics such as the 2002 and 1 series M coupe. As you’d expect, all that power is going to make this hatchback pretty brisk and of course you’d be correct.
BMW claims a 0-62mph time of 4.9 seconds but reviewers have seen figures a few tenths lower from this wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Ford Focus RS (£30,000)
Despite VW starting hot hatches, Ford have a solid claim on creating the greatest ever hot hatches. Names such as ‘Escort Cosworth’ and ‘Fiesta XR2i’ are some of the greatest hot hatches ever created and blend power and affordability in a market defining way.
This latest iteration of the hot Focus is a real gem! 354bhp going to all four wheels, manual gearbox, 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds, and a ‘drift mode’… a drift mode in a hatchback?! If you can’t have fun in this car, you probably can’t have fun at all.
Audi RS3 (£40,000)
£40,000 is a lot of money for a hatchback, but then again, this is no ordinary hatch, is it? 362bhp to all four corners via a dual clutch gearbox means that this car is likely to bounce your eyeballs off the back of your skull, should you be liberal with the loud pedal.
0-62mph is dispatched in 4.3 seconds and if you spec the performance pack the top speed is 176mph!
Mercedes A45 AMG (£40,000)
Another £40,000 hot hatch entrant has some seriously large numbers attached to it. 376bhp, just let that settle in… that’s 100 horsepower more powerful than a BMW M1, which is considered the birthplace of useable supercars.
Still not impressed? Well, mash your foot into the Merc’s carpet and you certainly will be, you’ll hit 62mph in 4.2 seconds and on to a top speed of 167mph. To put the A45 in perspective, it has the exact same 0-62 time as a 2002 Ferrari 575, a car that was one of the fastest cars in the world at the time of release.
So if you’re heading to the forecourt this weekend, we hope our little rundown helps you to choose the perfect hot hatch for your garage. Oh and if you already own a hot hatch that has been in the wars a little bit recently then worry not as we offer mobile car body repairs that are sure to get it back to showroom condition in no time.
Thanks for reading!
