Hatchbacks

Volkswagen on Wednesday unveiled a tuned version of its Golf GTI inspired by the TCR race version of the car. It's called the Golf GTI TCR, and it was previewed by a concept at the 2018 Wörthersee Tour tuning fest held last May in Austria. The production version matches the concept car's...

The assimilation of the N performance sub-brand into the Hyundai borg didn't take long. On Monday, the automaker introduced the 2019 Hyundai Elantra GT N Line at the 2019 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The Elantra GT N Line is a rebadged Elantra GT Sport from last year that...

Nissan on Tuesday finally unveiled a long-range option for its Leaf electric car. The 2019 Nissan Leaf Plus made its debut at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and will be in showrooms in the spring. Nissan didn't say how much the Leaf Plus would cost when it goes on sale. The Plus in...

Toyota has a new Corolla on its hands, one that doesn't look like something your grandma would drive—and the car could be destined to receive some performance upgrades to back its racy looks. Australia's Car Sales reported Thursday that a Corolla GR hot hatch is being developed to challenge...

Mercedes-AMG has just revealed the new 302-horsepower A35 hot hatch, but the Affalterbach tuner still has the even hotter redesigned A45 in the hopper, and the car has just been previewed in a dramatic teaser video. The new A45 hatch is due for a reveal in early 2019, and while we won't see it in...

Bitter is a German tuner of Opel cars that made its mark on the world in the 1970s when it produced a shooting brake called the CD. The car was based on an Opel sedan and came with a Chevrolet V-8, and it had the full blessing of General Motors, which owned Opel at the time. In fact, legendary GM...

Nissan in 2011 graced us with a race car concept based on the first-generation Leaf electric hatchback. Nissan built the concept to draw attention to the seemingly untapped performance potential of electric cars, though the concept wasn't particularly fast, its electric motor generating just 107...

Mazda on Wednesday unveiled a stylish new generation of its popular 3 hatchback and sedan but fans pining for a high-performance Mazdaspeed version are set for disappointment. Speaking to Drive at the reveal of the new 3 at the 2018 Los Angeles auto show, Mazda CEO Akira Marumoto said the company...

These days, buying an affordable car doesn't mean you have to drive something whose reflection you'd rather not see when passing a wall of glass. This is thanks primarily to brands like Mazda which in recent years has been really pushing the design envelope for non-premium cars. The Japanese firm...

Audi in June unveiled the second generation of its A1 subcompact for overseas markets. Unfortunately, a sporty version to succeed its predecessor's S1 model is “not foreseen” on the current platform. That's according to Audi spokesman Peter Oberndorfer, who in an interview with Car...

Hyundai currently offers an i30 N-based race car for customer teams competing around the globe in TCR competition. But in markets where the i30 N isn't available, such as the United States, local teams have been seeking a race car based on the related Veloster N. Hyundai last week finally confirmed...

Hyundai's first real step into the hot hatch segment, at least in the United States, will come with a competitive base price. The Korean brand on Tuesday revealed the 2019 Veloster N will start at $27,785, including destination. The base price will net buyers a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-4 that...

Mazda on Thursday provided a glimpse at the next-generation Mazda 3 sedan and hatch and confirmed the reveal for this month's 2018 Los Angeles auto show. Apart from a teaser photo and video, there aren't any additional new details to go on. However, Mazda has been dropping plenty of hints about its...

The Honda Civic Type R soldiers on into the 2019 model year with limited changes, but buyers will have to shell out $1,000 more over 2018's model. Honda revealed pricing and details for the Civic Type R on Thursday, which included the price bump. For 2019, the hot hatchback will cost $36,595, an...

Mercedes-Benz has a redesigned A-Class on its hands, and this time around there is both a hatchback and a sedan, the latter of which we'll see here in the United States. They're the first of eight body styles planned for Mercedes' new generation of compacts. Another is a redesigned B-Class minivan...

Act One: Track time Four cars head out onto the east course at Thunderhill Raceway Park outside of Willows, California. The cars are Hyundais. Yes, Hyundais. This track can be terrifying, with a couple of blind crests, one of which leads to an off-camber right turn. I’m not too worried...

Ford engineers have been caught testing the new Focus ST hot hatch set for a reveal very soon. Ford unveiled a new generation of the Focus in April, and we were meant to get one variant of the popular compact in the United States, a soft-roader called the Focus Active to be sourced from China...

Porsche on Monday unveiled the new GTS version of its second-generation Panamera. Available with either the standard hatch or Sport Turismo wagon body styles, the GTS enhances the Panamera with an extra helping of sportiness but without blowing up the price. The extra sportiness comes primarily...

Toyota used this week's 2018 Paris auto show to present the new GR Sport version of its Yaris subcompact hatch. GR Sport represents the entry-level trim from Toyota's new GR performance sub-brand launched last year in Japan. GR stands for Gazoo Racing, Toyota's official motorsport department, and...

Although all eyes were on the Mercedes-AMG A35 at the 2018 Paris motor show, it's the upcoming A45 that promises real performance credentials. Now we have the latest details on the AMG A45 hot hatchback straight from AMG boss Tobias Moers. The chairman of the management board of Mercedes-AMG told...