Petrol vs electric: is the hot hatchback dead? 

I love small hot hatchbacks. A lightweight car with a fizzy engine under the bonnet is a recipe for a good time, but there aren’t that many of them left these days. There are a few electric hot hatches popping up as well, and I’m not sure if an EV can deliver the same feeling with its heavy batteries and silent power delivery.

To find out if there’s still life in the hot hatchback market, I’m behind the wheel of an old Ford Fiesta ST, one of the best cars in its class before it was killed off a few years ago, and I’m going to drag race it against four small hot hatchbacks which you can still buy today. Two of them are electric, and the other two use old-fashioned combustion.

Let’s start by taking a look at the stats.

Quick stats

Starting with my Fiesta, it has a 1.5-litre three-cylinder petrol engine with 200hp and 320Nm of torque. This is sent to the front wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox, and it weighs 1,238kg.

Next up we have the Volkswagen Polo GTI, which uses a 2.0-litre petrol engine with 207hp and 320Nm of torque. It’s also front-wheel drive, but it has a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox. The VW tips the scales at 1,296kg.

The Mini Cooper JCW also has a 2.0-litre petrol engine, but it puts out 231hp and 380Nm of torque. Power goes to the front wheels through a seven-speed automatic gearbox, and it weighs 1,330kg.

Our first EV of the day is the Alpine A290 GTS, which uses a 220hp motor to power the front wheels. It also has 300Nm of torque, and it weighs 1,479kg.

Finally, we have the Abarth 600e. It has a front-mounted electric motor putting out 280hp and 345Nm of torque, and it’s the heaviest car here at 1,640kg.

Hot hatchback drag race: what happened on the quarter mile?

It was a great start for me in the Fiesta in the first race, I even beat the electric Alpine off the line. But it was the Mini which stormed to victory in round one by quite some margin.

However, Racing Driver Sam had a bone to pick with the Polo. He said that it had the longest delay between releasing the brake and launching that he’d ever seen in six years on Carwow, so we went again.

The Polo did indeed get a better launch in the second race, however the Abarth must’ve had a trick up its sleeve because it won this race by a mile – much to my surprise. That’s despite the driver’s one-word review of the car. “Boring”.

So that means we need to go again.

And it was the same result again. The Abarth stormed to victory, followed closely by the Mini. I had a rubbish launch after deciding I knew better than the car’s launch control system, so I came last.

That meant we needed to do another run, and this is where the Mini redeemed itself. After an absolutely cracking launch, the JCW smashed all its rivals out of the park.

However, after this race the driver of the Abarth had some racing driver’s excuses. There was a puddle on the start line over his grid slot, which led to a load of wheelspin off the line and traction control cut the power.

So it’s currently 2-2 between the Mini Cooper JCW and the Abarth 600e, so here’s the decider.

I was battling Sam at the back of the pack, and despite jumping the start a bit I still lost. I was so far back that I couldn’t actually see who won the race, so let’s take a look at the final results.

The results

In the end, the Mini Cooper JCW won. It completed the quarter-mile in 14.1 seconds. It was followed closely by the Abarth, which took 14.5 seconds.

In third was the Volkswagen Polo GTI with a time of 15 seconds. Finally, the Alpine and the Fiesta both took 15.1 seconds to complete the race, but the A290 was slightly ahead on the line. So to all you people in the comments whinging that I always pick the fastest car, take that.

It was closer than I thought it would be, and it shows that electric hot hatches are still mightily quick despite the added weight. For me though, I’d still prefer a noisy petrol engine under the bonnet.

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