An Appreciation of the Classic 3dr Hot Hatch

In reply to mblommel :

High school in the late 80's was such a blast! Everything is so different now, which of course is to be expected, but when you're there contemporaneously on the daily living in it yeah you realize the future will inevitably be different but cannot grasp just how drastic the changes will be until like 25 or 30 years later when it hits a WOW! moment about how different the world is nowadays, it is then that you start yelling at clouds and starting off rambly rants with ...well back in my day

The Fuego is a very odd duck...

...and,

they look totally rad when done up a bit!

I can think of no other car that ever used the strange full-length side treatment the Fuego did, I'm not sure what to properly refer to it as though, what would such a trim feature  be called?

Went looking on CL for Renault but no dice outside of pre-1975 classics ---

--- did find this AX GTi though which is pretty dang awesome to see over here and easily available for purchase, looks pretty clean too...

...TG has some details as I'm not wholly familiar with this model.

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/citroen/ax-gt

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sellers description:

Attention collectors!

1992 Citroen AX GTI, French supermini. Top iteration of AX model with most power and accessories.
1.4 liter engine, 8 valve head, run by Bosch 3.2 Motronic multipoint injection system producing 100 HP.
Manual 5 speed transmission.

Runs, shifts, drives and stops great, is extremely light.
New brakes, fuel lines, all fluids, filters. Everything works. A/C is holding vacuum but is not charged currently.
Car is in very good condition aside from few scratches by some Francophobe apparently, before I owned it.

Spare parts are available and cheap, mostly shipped from Britain or China.
Very well engineered car with low, original mileage.
Shares many parts with Peugeot 106.

Clean WA state title in my name.
$13500 no trades.
If ad is up it’s available.

Search words: Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, Matra, Simca, Facom, USAG, Beta, Hazet, Stahlwille, French bulldog, French kiss, GTI, classic mini, Abarth, rare, Delahaye, Bitter, Bugatti, Facel Vega, Panhard, Alpine, Venturi,

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I thought it was cool of the seller to provide an inspirational photo for what if? daydreaming purposes 

:

Did then later spot a Fuego but not at CL, over on FB Marketplace up for grabs down in Florida, and I'd tend to agree with the sellers descrip too as a coupe even though it does have a hatchback, because it's sort of a difficult line to draw really, when it comes to strict classification as hatchback, witnessed in this very thread by some posted outliers who don't fit the "econobox" mold but still are technically "hatchbacks", so really I'm not sure about anything!

100 hp from an 8v 1.4, wow, I'm impressed! Cool car!

Marketplace - 1995 Citroen ZX · Volcane | Facebook

I had a Fuego magic top on my 78 "GTI", it was all built the way you would have in the mid-80's except the turbo ABA.

the other Yaris GR

Made in  very limited numbers but was available in LHD!

Oddly enough produced in France at Toyota's Valenciennes factory there.

La trappe chaude sportive performante spéciale série limitée!

hottohatchi!

ホットハッチ

Generally rather positive reviews:

https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/toyota/toyota-yaris-grmn-2018-review/

https://www.evo.co.uk/toyota/yaris/grmn

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I've settled for whatchamacallit thingamajig as a sufficient enough descriptor!

The early sketches by Michel Jardin were missing that element and it might've been his boss Robert Opron who suggested it as I saw a bit of footage where he says "which divides the car very simply" while drawing a broad stroke across it:

The narrator in the video a little later calls it an important design feature, which he referred to as "grooved sides".

Family hatches:

78 Fiesta S

79 Fiesta

91 GTI

03 GTI Rabbit Anniversary Edition

04 R32

85 RX7

72 Pinto wagon 2 door  2.0 4 speed no options

95 Z28

So I was thinking through it and I've had 6 over the years. 

Started it with a fox body. 1985 Mustang GT

Traded that for this Dodge Colt GT. This exact one. I found out it was the car used in ads and magazine test car. 

Then an 83 GTI and an 83 Honda civic. 

Now another 85 Mustang GT and my 96 JDM Mitsubishi Mirage. 

Honorably mention: Even my trucks were 3 door hatch. 78 Jeep Cherokee and 1988 Dodge Ramcharger (Not the exact ones but same look) 

Z3 Coupe

! ! !

Best crazy concept for a 3dr hot hatch = 1981 Sbarro Super Twelve

Basically a Ferrari 308 GTB with a shortened frame and custom bodywork.

Powered by two 6 cylinder 1300cc Kawasaki motorcycle engines and weighing around 1,760 pounds.

http://sbarro.phcalvet.fr/voitures/SuperTwelve/supertwelvegb.html

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But if forced to choose,
I'd rather have the Super Eight from 1984:

http://sbarro.phcalvet.fr/voitures/SuperEight/SuperEightgb.html

Powered by a 3-liter 260hp Ferrari V8.
 

I'm not sure why we couldn't get the last Scirocco here. 

^

that's the official answer

that dude later got promoted to be the boss of Bentley

Rocco R-Cup!

this auction was pretty wild, as is the car itself:

https://carsandbids.com/auctions/3BeLZn26/2008-volkswagen-r32-scirocco-conversion

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(golden oldie)

This is a great advertisement:

Another example of a variant that we were sadly denied for who knows why.

3dr FiST is awesome!

In reply to Oldboy Speedwell :

the worry of the Scirocco stealing sales from the Rabbit/Golf was always the reason the sportier car never got all the good stuff. Seems to me if you are selling cars, who cares what model it is?

For real.

It's a big bummer and doesn't make such sense to me.

We didn't even get the pedestrian version of the Audi A1, and as much as I want to love it, I doubt that I'd be a buyer for the souped-up version either due to what I consider to be excessive weight plus AWD complexity, as I personally much prefer FWD on my hot hatch...

...

...

...but I still find myself daydreaming gobsmacked with eyes glazed over lusting after it just because it looks so dang cool!

:

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15118648/2012-audi-a1-quattro-first-drive-review/

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"There are some special small cars that enthusiasts would kill for, including the mid-engined Renault 5 Turbo, the rear-drive Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, and just about any Group B World Rally Championship homologation car, such as the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16. Here's a potential new classic: the Audi A1 Quattro, priced at the equivalent of more than $55,000 and powered by a 256-hp turbo four. Production is limited to just 333 units. It will be by far the most powerful car in its class, the 208-hp Mini John Cooper Works being a distant second."

Oldboy Speedwell said:

 

The real kicker is that the GTI is a hatchback.  

In reply to Oldboy Speedwell :

The FiST makes sooo much more sense as a 3 door.

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

The real kicker is that the GTI is a hatchback.  

Another ironic kicker is that of all people VW should know that there's a potential for something to unexpectedly become a huge hit given the surprise they got from the original GTI...

https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/buying-guides/buying-guide-volkswagen-golf-gti-mk1-1976-1983/

...but they gave up and won't even try anymore it seems, at least with the USA, shrug, like what if they would have gambled on the Up! and brought it over which then somehow filled a missing niche for fun cheap econobox that actually sold at a decent volume --- that is a big if tho, the American market is just weird all around in my opinion.

Aaron_King said:

In reply to Oldboy Speedwell :

The FiST makes sooo much more sense as a 3 door.

I know right?

A tragedy that we didn't get the 3dr version.

Hello Mountune!

mad_machine said:

the worry of the Scirocco stealing sales from the Rabbit/Golf was always the reason the sportier car never got all the good stuff. Seems to me if you are selling cars, who cares what model it is?

Having worked a bit on the launch of the Golf R in North America I'm pretty sure that the company would turn that question around: if we won't sell more cars, why bring in another model? New model mean new direct costs including compliance, parts, training, marketing, etc It also makes planning and distribution more complicated.

To their credit, they did get the Golf R into the market, with a manual trans even.

Great. Now I'm looking at Golf R's dammit!

Hit up the nationwide search on CarGurus...

...also, now I'm sad because I've never driven an R (or even been a passenger in one) and it might even flip my switch wildly enough to overcome my built-in bias of thinking that they're too porky to be truly tossable fun.

I have no doubt that they are very nice cars.

Can't say that I'm too keen on the design of the  Mk7, but the Mk6 looks pretty good.

The Mk4 R32 tho.

Whoah.

A trueblue modern classic without a damn doubt.

Oldboy Speedwell said:

 

^

that's the official answer

that dude later got promoted to be the boss of Bentley

 

Rocco R-Cup!

this auction was pretty wild, as is the car itself:

https://carsandbids.com/auctions/3BeLZn26/2008-volkswagen-r32-scirocco-conversion

.

 

(golden oldie)

This is a great advertisement:

So tired of these morons with MBAs.  They sold a zillion of the original "3 door" Focus's, a zillion Hondas, even saw a whole bunch of Cobalts, etc.  

I wanted to get one of those lime green 2 doors Civics for a daily driver back when Honda sold them (I wish I had...).

Up market compared to those, but all the up market stuff in 2 doors sells as well.

I'd argue they're an addition to sales. And I can't remember the last time I saw a beetle on the road.

Surprised he didn't take a job at Bud Light....

Oldboy Speedwell said:

Great. Now I'm looking at Golf R's dammit!

...also, now I'm sad because I've never driven an R (or even been a passenger in one) and it might even flip my switch wildly enough to overcome my built-in bias of thinking that they're too porky to be truly tossable fun.

I have no doubt that they are very nice cars

I've only ever driven a 2012-spec. We would see coworkers zooming around and I thought 'man, those guys shouldn't behave that badly in a car with headquarters license plates'. Then I got my turn to borrow one for a while and others surely thought 'that jerk shouldn't behave that badly...'

They don't feel light and tossable like a Miata, but they're way more fun than you might expect from the numbers.

In reply to ГУЛАГ мальчик УР следующий :

The MBA guys have convinced themselves that buyers only want CUV's because that's all they offer for sale. 

Makes so much sense right???