Hot hatch

A hot hatch is slang for a small family hatchback car with a powerful engine, usually front wheel drive. The 1977 Volkswagen Golf GTI is usually considered the car that started the genre.

The term GTI has often been used to refer to any hot hatch, since Volkswagen's competitors put into production fast versions of their own family hatchbacks. At first mostly called GTI (or GTi), they are now rarely named that way since insurers apparently associated the term with a high risk, even allowing for the higher risk always involved in insuring faster cars.

Small fast cars without hatchbacks such as the the Mini Cooper are not generally called hot hatches.

Classic hot hatches include:

• Citroën Saxo VTR
• Ford Escort XR3
• MG Metro Turbo
• Peugeot 205 GTi
• Renault 5 GT turbo
• Renault Clio Williams
• Talbot Sunbeam Lotus (unusual in being rear wheel drive)
• Vauxhall Astra GTE
• VW Golf GTI

and these current models (2004):

• Alfa Romeo 155 GTA
• Ford Focus RS
• Honda Civic Type-R

Low volume, heavily re-engineered versions of these cars, such as the mid-engined MG Metro 6R4, Renault 5 Turbo, Renault Clio V6, and Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, tend not to be called hot hatches.