Top 10 best hot hatches 2020

2. Ford Focus ST

The Blue Oval has had some memorably brilliant, chart-topping hot hatchbacks over the last couple of decades – and one of them still rules our ‘pocket rocket’ hot supermini rankings, let’s not forget. The current Focus ST narrowly misses out on that status, but not because it isn’t a really incisive and involving driver’s car, or because it’s lacking in power, pace or mechanical specification.

Although STs are typically slightly subordinate hot hatchbacks, Ford hasn’t held back with the makeup of this one. It’s the first Focus ST with adaptive dampers and the first with an electronically controlled limited slip differential for its driven front axle, the latter being something that remains fairly rare on cars of this price point and which certainly adds to its handling appeal.

The Focus ST has direct, agile handling, purposeful-feeling firm body control and abundant vocal and motive performance-car character. It’s the kind of hot hatch built to make even the more mundane road miles enjoyable, and it succeeds at that – although it lacks the outright grip and the playful handling adjustability of other fast Focuses of recent memory. 

Perhaps that’s the right balance for an ST model: more the effusive everyday road performance car than the really purposeful, big-hitting track machine – but either way, it’s not quite enough to make this car our ultimate hot hatchback of the moment.

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2. BMW M135i xDrive

You might think it odd that a 50 per cent drop in engine cylinders and a switch away from rear-wheel drive should have made the performance version of the new BMW 1-Series, the M135i xDrive, a better hot hatchback – but in many cases, that’s precisely the case.

By better, we clearly don’t mean more powerful or, at its very best, more exciting. The old M140i’s powertrain and chassis certainly both had their moments, but the new M135i xDrive is a more composed performance car that’s easier to drive, faster along a slippery, testing stretch of B-road, and communicates its adhesive limits and involves its driver just as clearly.

With the VW Golf R now out of production, the Mercedes-AMG A35 a shade less sophisticated and compelling in its ride and handling, and both the A35’s more powerful -45-branded counterpart and the Audi RS3 Sportback much more expensive, this is the four-wheel drive hot hatch we’d pick at the moment for extra-secure, all-weather, any-road, year-round driver entertainment. It is certainly no backward step from BMW.

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4. Volkswagen Golf GTI & GTI TCR

The most iconic hot hatch of them all is not as powerful or hardcore as some – far from it – but it remains singularly desirable, really convincing on the road and great to own and drive daily.

Breadth of ability, near-flawless dynamic polish and all-round versatility are its greatest dynamic strengths. However, even in its GTI Performance guise, this ultra-composed Golf has no answer for the agility or incisiveness of a Megane RS or a Focus ST. It’s perfect for everyday, real-world use each day of the week, however, and it’s also well capable of blowing off the cobwebs come Sunday morning.

If Volkswagen made the Golf GTI a bit more visually assertive and a little more interesting at its limits, then it could give the car the additional joie de vivre it needs to be upwardly mobile in this list. The mk.VII run-out TCR model was as attempt to do that, but despite its stick cup tyres and running gear makeover, it failed to elevate the car’s potential to excite to quite the levels that the GTI Clubsport S once hit.

As it is, though, few GTI devotees would change this singularly successful, long-lived, cannily positioned performance icon – and plenty of rival car brands would very happily clone it in replacement of their own alternatives.

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5. Renault Sport Mégane RS 280 & 300 Trophy

The fourth-generation Mégane RS isn’t a hot hatch for pretenders; with Cup chassis specced, this is a hard-riding, sharp-edged B-road weapon that demands some serious commitment, and not a few wider compromises, if you’re to get the best out of it.

Four-wheel steering virtually shortens its wheelbase through tighter bends and makes for super-incisive handling, while hydraulic bumpstops ensure the suspension can take any punishment you’re prepared to dish out. Meanwhile the car’s 1.8-litre four-pot provides plentiful performance - though not as much outright pace or high-range flexibility as a Civic Type R .

Ergonomics aren’t great, neither’s the cabin in general – and neither is the shift quality of the manual 'box (though it’s preferable to the clumsy paddleshift auto). 

But on the right road, in the right conditions – or better still, on track - there’s a lot to like here. And if you’re confident enough to plough your own furrow, ignore the wider market’s preference for the firmer cup version of the car, and order a sport-spec car instead (with its softer suspension much better-suited to everyday use and fast road driving), you’ll get a Megane RS that knows moderation as well as thrill, and is that bit easier to live with.

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6. Mini Clubman JCW

Built on exactly the same model platform as the BMW M135i and using the same engine, gearbox and four-wheel drive system, the Mini Clubman John Cooper Works is a bit of a landmark performance car for its maker. No hot Mini has offered more than three-hundred horsepower before – and few have matched the real-world pace, real-road handling smarts and daily usability of this one.

Like most Minis, the Clubman JCW rides low and close to the road, offering an appealing sporting driving position and a natural dynamic advantage over many of its peers. It’s also more directionally responsive and level in its cornering manners than the hot hatch norm, and firm-riding – without feeling quite as famously ‘go-kart-like’ as some fast Minis have traded on being over the years.

With enough room for adults in the back seats and a usable, full-size boot too, the Clubman offers comparable practicality with full-sized hatchbacks – but it retains much of the dynamic flavour required to make it handle with the appealing immediacy to make it seem authentic to the brand on its bonnet. In range-topping JCW form, it’s one of the more convincing and complete performance cars that Mini has yet built.

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7. Hyundai i30 N

Ascendant Korean car-maker Hyundai clearly wasn’t interesting in half-measures with its first N-branded performance model, the i30 N. This was the car it hired former BMW M Division engineering supremo Albert Biermann to help make, and then poured huge R&D resources behind.

And, although there are one or two caveats to admit, it didn’t go to all that trouble in vain. The i30 N has surprising hardcore temperament and a real sense of performance purpose, neither of which you expect from a car-maker with so little previous experience in the segment. There’s a really old-school flavour to the weight in its controls, and about the gravelly boost in its power delivery and the increasing firmness in its damping.

If anything, Hyundai went too far with the hardcore tuning of this car – as the i30 N’s firmest and most aggressive suspension, steering and drivetrain modes are too uncompromising, and make it a hard car to read. But at its best – in modest trim level, and set up for pragmatic ease-of-operation rather than out-and-out grip level – it’s an involving, balanced, genuinely appealing driver’s car.

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8. Mercedes-AMG A35 4Matic+

We’re currently between model generations of the walloping Mercedes-AMG A45 mega hatch – but that doesn’t mean there’s no fast A-Class in Mercedes showrooms. The A35 4Matic+ is Affalterbach’s slightly cheaper and more accessible lure for anyone looking for pace, everyday usability, driver appeal and premium brand cache from their hot hatchback.

Using a detuned version of the A45’s turbocharged 2.0-litre motor that produces just over 300-horsepower, and channelling its power to the road via a seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox and both axles, the A35 doesn’t drive like a subordinate performance derivative. It’s seriously fast, surprisingly firm-riding and quite aggressive-feeling for a car intended to be used every day. And yet it also has plenty of on-road handling precision and poise, and a chassis and drivetrain that always combine to find excellent grip and traction, even in slippery conditions.

Add to that the established technoglare appeal of the A-Class’ gadget-laden cabin and Mercedes’ brand allure and you’ve got a package that’s sure to find plenty of showroom success – even if it wouldn’t quite be the car we’d recommend for the ultimate in hot hatchback thrills or for any-weather, any-occasion usability.

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9. Audi RS3 Sportback

Audi Sport’s superheated A3, the RS3 Sportback, is now back from its emissions-related hiatus at the moment, with an updated WLTP-emissions compliant version now offering buyers fully four-hundred metric horsepower for just under £50,000.

What that money gets you is a simply incredible 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine and dual-clutch gearbox. It’s a combination that allowed the pre-facelifted 395bhp RS3 saloon to hit 60mph in just 3.9sec during Autocar testing in 2018, and dispatch 100mph in less than 10 seconds. That’s double-take stuff in this class and puts the model well into proper sports car territory on acceleration.

If there’s a caveat, it’s a familiar one – the quattro four-wheel-drive system still doesn't contribute much to handling appeal. That said, cross-country pace is utterly mighty and handling is ever-secure. Fitting the optional adaptive dampers is a must if you want a daily-use ride.

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10. Seat Leon Cupra

Seat’s Cupra-branded hot Leon range has been through plenty of change of the last couple of years, having climaxed with the limited-series, now-defunct Cupra R.

Now you can choose between a front-wheel drive chassis and 286bhp of power in the shorter five-door hatchback version, or four-wheel drive and 296bhp of the stuff in the more practical ‘ST’ estate. Neither version is any slouch, though – and unlike the VW Golf R to which it’s otherwise quite closely related, the front-driven version of the Seat uses an electronically locking front diff.

The Leon’s handling is crisp, agile and fairly grippy, though not quite as communicative, balanced or adhesive as some in the class. The engine’s a strong suit for the car, revving hard right to the redline and sounding hard-edged.

Added to all that is a pretty convincing bang-for-buck argument for this car, with the five-door version available from just under £30,000, and smart, sharp-edged styling that isn’t too chavvy. It makes for plenty to like – though perhaps not quite the incisive driver reward needed to bother our top order.

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