The early years of this decade have brought
us some of the best small hot hatches to date. We revisit the Renaultsport Clio
200 Cup, Suzuki Swift Sport and Ford Fiesta ST Mountune
Out on this wonderful road and on paper
too, the little Suzuki Swift Sport is outgunned in this company. The B4391 that
runs between Bala and Ffestiniog could have been sketched by Hermann Tilke’s
delinquent brother – the first five miles from the Bala side really do have the
feel of a Grand Prix circuit that has been stretched out and discarded over the
terrain – and no matter how defiantly a driver keeps their foot pinned on the
throttle through the well- sighted sweepers, the Swift just falls away. Around
every corner the grippier Clio edges a little further into the distance, and
with each new gear the turbocharged Fiesta pulls out a length or two.
The
ST Mountune is more entertaining than other considerably more costly hot
hatchbacks
The bare numbers suggested as much. The
Swift’s normally aspirated 1.6- litre engine delivers a modest 134bhp; rather
less than the 197bhp of the Renaultsport Clio 200Cup or the 212bhp of the Ford
Fiesta ST Mountune. It is a fact that the Swift is slower, but to dismiss it as
a result would be myopic in the extreme.
But let’s rewind a little. The current
decade has a real significance in the context of the small hot hatch and this
colourful trio expresses that quite neatly. Between them they remind us how the
small hot hatch genre reached this point, and they show us which direction such
cars will head in the future. Drive these three little chargers back-to-back
across these beautiful, barren moors and you travel not only at an alarming
pace along some of the most rewarding roads in the country, you also travel
right along the small hot hatch evolutionary timeline.
The
RS Clio 200 Cup’s design is very French, simple but elegant
The Swift is so true to the spirit of those
very first hot hatches of the 1980s that it seems directly descended from them;
more so, in fact, than its rivals here. It does without any form of forced
induction for one thing, but for another the styling and engineering upgrades
over and above the standard car are actually quite modest. However, it’s the
type of driving experience that those few revisions help deliver that most
clearly draws a line between the Swift and an early Golf GTI or an AXGT.
The
Suzuki Swift Sport is a pleasingly old-fashioned sort of hot hatchback
So I’m driving in convoy, chasing a long
line of much faster cars in this demonstrably slower one. The road is mostly
dry by late morning, but this particular stretch is barely wider than single-
track. The surface is shocking, too; not only with cracks and scars, but with
bigger yumps and crests. Bright red brake lights first flash on at the head of
the queue, then leap back one car at a time as each driver hurriedly sheds a
little speed to negotiate a turn or a nasty bump. The challenge in the Swift,
though, is to only lift off when the drivers of the bigger cars brake, and to
stay at when they lift off, making the most of the compliance advantage over
the heavier, firmer cars ahead. True to those early hot hatches, accessing the
Swift’s performance is an exercise in momentum and carrying speed. Braking is
too much of a penalty, for there just isn’t the power to quickly rebuild the
speed after corner exit.
