Ioniq 5 N vs S3 vs GR Yaris vs Civic Type R vs Focus ST: what's the best hot hatch on sale today?

In the cold light of day, our vibrant hot hatch final five gladdens a cynical petrolhead’s heart. Five manufacturers. No platform sharers. We’ve got a supermini and four proper family cars. Two manuals (the Yaris would’ve been nominated regardless of the gearbox – the only car here to offer a choice) and an EV to break up the turbo monopoly. There’s more diversity here than an episode of Star Trek.

But I’m uneasy. How is the most affordable car here the wrong side of £40k? And why is nothing in our final reckoning actually new? Sure, the Audi’s fresh from a facelift, but there’s nothing truly hot out of the oven. OK, there was the Alpine, but it’s not quite there yet. Did we already reach peak hot hatch? Are we sliding inexorably down the other side into oblivion?

That’s exactly how the day almost began, actually. Usually the Ioniq 5 N is content to be an SUV cosplaying a super hatch. This morning it performed a scarily accurate impression of a bowling ball on a waterslide.

Photography: Mark Fagelson

I undocked it from the hotel charger early doors, noted its 100 per cent battery reckoning on a range of 160 miles, winced, killed the heater and whacked up the seat and steering wheel warmers instead – a more efficient way to thaw out when it’s -2°C. As our convoy wove its way over the foothills of Snowdonia we’d cooed at from a safe viewing distance yesterday, it surprised me. It was early, I was sleepy, and not especially in the mood for digi-histrionics. So I left it in the silent Eco mode, whooshed along by instant torque, ignoring the brake pedal while regen took care of slowing down.

Christ, it was boring. Hyundai has been at pains to acknowledge all the fakery – the pops and bangs, the rev limiter, the ‘gearbox’ – is all switchoffable. None of The Matrix was forced upon you. But wow do you miss it when it’s not there, and the N shapeshifts into just another e-crossover. Within a mile or two, I’ve defaulted back to my ‘N Grin Shift’ – a risible name, but a worthwhile distraction for my juvenile brain.

The make-believe gearbox comes in handy as we climb into the slush zone and the 2.3-tonne 5 N snatches and slithers to the rumble of powerless ABS. Basically, you can meter out regen resistance by ‘downshifting’ into higher revs and holding a ‘gear’, while avoiding a physical squeeze of the brakes. It’s so accurately calibrated, you genuinely forget there’s no DSG transmission reining you in: just zeroes and ones. Meanwhile, the pesky Yaris scampers off into the distance and I’m waving impatient locals in quattro Audis out of my wake.

No surprise then that Ollie Marriage looks chilled in the S3 when we convene at a frozen layby on the A498. Sam is positively beaming about how much fun the Toyota was on the commute up here. And Mark the photographer is politely asking if we’re trying to bump him off by equipping him with a Focus ST wearing Pirelli’s P Zero Corsa track focused tyres. “I thought one of you had turned off the traction control somehow,” he says ruefully. “Wheelspinning everywhere.”

The Civic’s depending on less extreme rubber, and makes it along in one piece. The forecast promises a bright outlook, but while Mark captures grime encrusted closeups on the front drive stuff, the conditions are spot on for an AWD winter weapon.

So, I nip off in the Audi – the most surprising entry into the final five. Ollie Marriage argued the case for the Volkswagen Golf GTI but was outvoted, foiled because the 8.5 Clubsport doesn’t really demonstrate a big leap of improvement over what’s gone before. You could argue no GTI has since the MkV. Our collective favourite update is that the steering wheel is no longer a plastic hate crime of haptic nonsense.

The S3 still doesn’t impress inside. It’s angular and austere, the steering wheel is too big, its paddles feel cheap and the seats are a joke: hard, flat and as supportive as a drill sergeant. And they want 60 grand for this! On the outside, it’s actually regained some Q car factor by dint of all Audis being so overstyled, and shunning a few S3 badges. So it’s the least eventful car here. Climb into any of the others, vaulting tall bolsters and lairy stitching and the tone is set – “Righty ho, this is a performance car.” This is more ‘top of the range A3’.

It even catches hostile conditions unawares. It’s a yes man, unflinchingly answering your commands: do this, go there, be fast, turn now. Away from the wide open spaces of the track the benefits of its RS3 inherited sport diff aren’t as obvious, but it’s a country mile away from the bad old days of one dimensional, Audi drear steer. If you want teleportation and equate value for money with extracting every molecule of oomph 365 days a year, the S3 is a terminator.

Where it has slack in its drivetrain and woolly gearbox reflexes, the Yaris charges past with panache. What a mighty little attack terrier – it ought to come as standard with a timeshare in a moorland cottage or mountain bothy, so you can spend your winters harrying anything exotic that’s foolish enough to trespass on its patch.

Rowan’s convinced it’s not quite the hooligan the first GR was, expressing relief the handbrake still dislocates the rear driveshafts for yobbomatic moments. Can’t say I’m feeling any dropoff in energy – the modes have been reworked so Gravel now splits the adaptive four-wheel drive evenly and you need Track mode for a yeehaw rear bias – but the sheer purchase it wrenches from glistening sub zero roads is astonishing.

Did we already reach peak hot hatch?

Unlike the Audi, which runs out of damping when you really get going, the Yaris is firm but exacts stunning control and composure. Perhaps that’s why some feel it’s lost some of the playful puppy factor. I’m in love. The seat’s lower (where it always ought to have been) the resculpted dash is nothing to look at but you’ve no longer got the forward visibility of a panzer and it even sounds fruity in a gruff, semi-industrial, three cylinder sort of way. And it’s such a great size for a hot hatch, finding room to dance into where the Ioniq is kissing dry stone walls.

Ollie’s in firm agreement the Toyota is a tonic, and despite being impressed by the flappy paddles we’re all sure we’d prefer a manual while there’s still the glimmer of the (£1,500 cheaper) option. But the Yaris has lost a little of its pocket hero lustre now it costs over £45,000 – it was a sniff over £35k when it shot to stardom in 2021. At that price, you might grumble harder about useless back seats, crap rear visibility and no back wiper. The lack of heated seats is earning it a pasting today.

Ford's are usually nuclear. These chairs are also supremely supportive and oh so comfy. So with the roads defrosted and drying, I get reacquainted with an old friend. Haven’t driven a Focus ST since I spent eight months with our TG Garage long termer back in 2020, and in the space of about three gearchanges, I’m sold all over again.

It’s not a polished car, the ST. It’s jouncy and distracted. I take Ollie’s point that it’s lacking the professional gloss of the Civic but this is one of those increasingly rare cars that oozes character from flaws you suspect were deliberately left on the table. The torque steer, for instance. It’s not going to wrench the chunky superheated wheel from your grasp, but it likes to remind you that entrusting the front wheels with the thick end of 300 horsepower is daft. The steering’s springy, but for me that only encourages indulging the Ford signature move of an over exuberant turn in, a brief tripod wheel flourish, then let the wheel twang back to straighten everything out.

It’s a little bit arcade-y. Silly and rough around the edges next to the scalpel sharp Civic. It feels like Ford’s magnum opus was the Fiesta ST, and the attempt to splice as much of that car’s DNA into its bigger brother brought on some slightly freakish side effects. But it asks interesting questions: do some hot hatches take themselves a bit seriously? Sure, we’re spoilt by EV torque these days, but haven’t you missed feeling this 2.3-litre just haul from idle? What a torque king. When it grows up, this fast Ford wants to be a muscle car like its cousins in Detroit. 

I arrive back midway through an argument about authenticity. The Audi sports too many fake vents, though amazingly all four combustion cars here have real tailpipes. Rowan’s been for a blat in the Hyundai and is unscrambling his tortured brain. “It’s a lesson in sensory deprivation,” he reckons. “The ‘engine braking’ isn’t just useful, it’s critical to the whole drive. Turn off all that rev counter and paddleshift stuff and you’ve got... nothing.”

What you’ve got regardless is a car a size too big and a tonne too heavy to indulge itself here in hot hatch country, festooned with blind brows, yumps and off camber kinks. We start brainstorming a cherrypicked understudy to the 5 N: somehow shoehorning that play value into an EV the size of a Yaris. “It doesn’t need 600 horsepower,” Rowan insists, “250 would be fine – and make it front drive.”

We all applaud the Ioniq for the bravery of its ideas, and the N division’s sheer force of will to commit to a project which could’ve sunk the entire skunkworks, irreversibly derided as a laughing stock of inauthenticity. The 5 N gets away with it because its special effects are so convincing. Rich in innovation, it offers hope. But it’s not yet the car any of us would choose to take home and keep for the rest of our days. Nothing to do with the remaining 50-mile range...

Because while all the cars here have their small victories, over the weather, the road, and each other, nothing has the breadth of brilliance you find in the sensational Civic Type R. It’s no recency bias that it makes our list not just of the best hot hatches of the moment, but the greatest of all time. This thing’s a landmark for the ages. It deserves to have tapestries woven in its image and ballads penned in its name.

What’s remarkable is how big a step it is from the old one, which also legged it with every award going and demolished the competition. All of its predecessor’s sensational balance, grip and inherent toughness live on, buffed up with a mature, honed polish that’s reflected in the more grown up looks, the rationalised cabin, and the bigger breadth of modes, with (at last) a ‘mix and match’ Individual mode. You can finally twin a rabid throttle with plush damping, and the result is just about the best British B-road car ever devised. Ruthlessly fast, but never aloof. And that gearshift. Wow. You’d never tire of such precision, even if it’s a palm chafer when the mercury’s below freezing.

Almost all of us will have a hot hatch story somewhere

And what of the whole scene, this first rung on the ladder of petrolhedonism? Like a winter’s day, it feels like everything’s getting dark early. I’ve consoled myself – and I’ll share this forlorn hope with you – that the hot hatchback has treaded water through doldrums before and come back swinging.

Connotations of joyriders, ramraiders and stratospheric insurance premiums damn near killed the genre off in the mid-1990s. There have been blips since – in the aftermath of the global recession Honda temporarily deleted the Type R. Dieselgate put paid to a 400bhp Golf R. Ford admitted in a statement as far back as 2020 that it couldn’t justify a future for the Focus RS.

It’s been a creeping dieback, now gathering pace like the 5 N did on the descent down Pen Y Pass this morning, because the donor cars themselves – the humble hatches – are on borrowed time. RIP Fiesta. No more Focus. Polo and Golf up for debate, while the likes of the Megane and Leon morph into bespoke EVs.

So... just buy one. Buy a hot hatch. Any one of these five. Or one of the past masters. Buy one, use it every day, enjoy it, tell your friends. Buy one as a protest vote. Buy one because they’re rewarding, flattering, versatile daily drivers. Almost all of us will have a hot hatch story somewhere along the road. Hot hatchbacks are magical. We can’t allow them to be left on ice.