Where the Swift’s engine begins to give up,
the Clio’s really starts to let rip. It’s the speed that the car carries, though,
that really stands out. Get a Clio Cup onto its toes and you begin to believe
that not a single car throughout this hot hatch celebration could cross the
ground quicker, so raw and involving is the experience. That’s nonsense, of
course, but the impression is genuine and deeply satisfying.
The
ST Mountune is powered by a four-cylinder 1.6-litre engine
This Clio, it seems clear, will forever be
remembered for lifting the junior hot hatch class to a whole new level. Never
before – perhaps with the exception of the earlier Clio Trophy – has a
hatchback shaken off its humble origins quite so completely. It’s a trick that
the Fiesta ST simply had to emulate. Drive a Mountune version over the B4391
and you’d scarcely believe that it shares anything whatsoever with a modest
shopping hatch. The cabin, for one thing, feel s tuned to its tiniest detail
for at-out driving: the wheel comes close to your chest and the seats wrap
themselves right around your kidneys.
Powered
by a naturally aspirated 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, the Clio RS 200 Cup
sure knows how to move
That brawny turbocharged engine pulls
harder than the normally aspirated units in the Swift and the Clio, but there’s
still a satisfying top end. The gearshift action is slick, too, but it’s the
Fiesta’s fluidity down this road that really resonates. Like the Clio it
rotates a little on turn-in – not into real oversteer, just a slight adjustment
of attitude – but where the Clio stays at, the Fiesta rolls slightly. That
small amount of lean gives a clear impression of the grip levels across the
outer edge of the car, and combined with the rotation it just makes the Fiesta
flow down the road beautifully. It feels almost as though you’re driving on
gravel and it’s utterly addictive.
The
naturally aspirated 1.6-litre engine on the Suzuki Swift Sport develops 134bhp
and 118lb ft
The Ford matches the Renault for outright
fun (although the French car is more frenzied in its delivery of those thrills)
but the Fiesta also covers ground just a little more quickly and, with a more
complaint ride and a less frantic drivetrain, it’s significantly more appealing
as a daily prospect. It therefore sets out the blueprint for the small hot
hatch of the future: turbocharged, engaging, fast enough down a road to trouble
a dedicated sports car, but also useable as an everyday machine.
This decade has perhaps been the most
significant for the small hot hatch since the genre’s inception. During the
past few years the archetypal junior hot hatch has discarded its unassuming
roots like never before, it has become turbocharged as a general rule, and in
the Clio Cup and Fiesta ST Mountune has delivered two of the very best
affordable performance cars of all time.
