The Most Ultimate Hottest Hatch … In The World (Part 2)

The bit where we pack them

Still on the practicality aspect, and in an area where we feel we’ve been the most clever, is the boot space test. The muscle car enthusiasts are right: there re-ally is no replacement for displacement. And thanks to its SUV proportions, the Porsche and BMW are able to displace a LOT. You might have displayed similar admiration to ours when recent news from the Northern Cape broke of a local political party’s ability to lay waste to over $11,724 worth of fried chicken in just about a month. Clearly a misinterpretation of the term ‘bucket list’. No doubt, they’d have transported those hot wings in similarly hot utilities such as ours, and just look at the benefits! Volkswagen Golf GTI? Five paltry boxes of poultry, not even enough for a staff lunch. Enter our upsized combatants and the feathers really begin to fly. Even the sharply descending roofline hasn’t impaired the X6 too badly, and here it trounces the Golf with a tally of eight boxes. Now we’re talking. The Porsche however, that’s in a chicken-swallowing master class of its own, capable of nine boxes of the fine farm cuisine – enough to feed at least one table of ministers. Result!

The BMW’s diesel does a wonderful job of emulating a petrol-burning in-line six with a burbling, bassy engine note so convincing you’d swear it was rumbling from the subwoofers

There are of course other aspects of hot hatchery to consider. Such as aesthetics. And frankly here the Golf GTI plays it far too safe. The BMW? Maybe some restraint was needed, or at least an initial design briefing at which the mood board featured less of the Big Five. On the upside, that quasi-matte pearlescent white paint gets two enthusiastic thumbs up. The Porsche, and I know your typical 911 fundi will spit on me for this, is the head-turn ingest surprise of the lot. For good reasons, I assure you. It’s a proper Porsche from the ground up – just look at those ballooned hips, teardrop headlamps and supercar snout. Its profile feels more resolved than the X6 and in navy blue metal it even manages to look classy. At a push. Clamber aboard and its dense array of buttons is enough to baffle Captain Kirk, but it does feel special as it’s no different from sportier siblings such as the 911 and Cayman. The BMW dials in familiarity to a large degree; being restrained but ergonomically depend-able. It’s a great place to be, if not the best, while the GTI Mk7 comes close for the same reasons – edging nearer to its Audi siblings for general Premiumness.

The Porsche quickly played catch-up and with enough asphalt to lay waste to would invariably be the first to head-butt the horizon

The leather bucket seats are all similarly cossetting, with the significantly lower Golf offering a more natural driving position for spirited hooniganism. The Porsche does a good job of emulating it with a lower seating position than you experience in the great big romping Bavarian. Levels of kit at this end of the market are as lush as you can expect, although much of it comes standard in the Cayenne whereas the others will require liberal ticking of spec boxes from their respective options menus, thus inflating their original sticker prices. We should probably talk about those prices now.

With throttle pedals flattened into the carpets of both sport utilities, the GTI’s induction bark is reduced to the yap-yap of a Chihuahua

The bit where we make up our minds

OK, so there’s a Golf-sized chasm between the price of a GTI ($34,527) and its nearest price rival here, the Cayenne ($87,580), which is still some way off the X6 M50d (at $98,956). Look, we did say ‘most ultimate’. I’m not sure that this effort has been a total failure. True, once you crack the million Rand mark, some sensibility must give way to an element of ridiculousness. But that hasn’t stopped Mercedes-Benz from pushing the gold-stenciled envelope with its A45 AMG. And yes, fuel economy might have taken a bit of a knock here, what with the Porsche swilling 8.3l/100km, the BMW managing 7.7l/100km and the frugal-tastic GTI smugly sip-ping just 6.4l/100km. On paper, that is. But just look at the mountains of metal being shunted around here, and it’s a miracle they move at all!

Line them up on a straight and wide section of tar with their sportiest settings dialed in and the results are predictable

No, all considered, this is a mission verily accomplished with a clear winner hailing from Stuttgart. The Porsche has trumped the BMW in every category I care to recall at this juncture, and there’s the fact that it can be parked on your driveway for a full $9,019 less. And as you know, that is almost good for a whole month’s worth of flame-grilled chicken.