The big test: hyper hatches
How did we arrive in a world where two family hatchbacks offer 800bhp and cost a combined £120,000? Let’s go soul-searching, in Wales
WORDS OLLIE KEW
PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD
MERCEDES-AMG A45S
£57,195/£59,145 as tested
AUDI RS3 SPORTBACK
£50,900/£60,460 as tested
There’s an oft-memed line from Jurassic Park where one of the main characters unlikely to get eaten admonishes one of the dino-nerds with the zinger: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
In a world going electric, 25mpg hyper hatches are dinosaurs. Did Audi and AMG get a bit carried away? Lose their minds? Yes. Is that necessarily bad? Let’s find out.
The Audi RS3 has had this much wallop for a while. The last version packed 400 metric horsepower (394bhp), and while Audi has managed to keep the headline act 2.5-litre straight-five engine for one last dance, officially it’s no more powerful than the previous car.
Torque has been tickled up 20lb ft to 369lb ft, but so far as the numbers war goes, Audi has decided either that 400 is quite enough. Or perhaps 400 is the most it can get away with without faceplanting CO 2 emission red tape.
But thanks to the lunacy of AMG, welcome to a £120,000, 800bhp hot hatch twin test. It’s a sign of the current times – the last days of anything-goes internal combustion – that the latest VW Golf R or even a Porsche 911 Carrera aren’t powerful enough to be in this test.