Hatchbacks

The Ford Focus is the best hatchback. It’s crammed with the latest technology, looks great and is brilliant to drive. It comes with a range of efficient engines and is competitively priced – no wonder it won our Family Award at the 2018 carwow Car of the Year Awards. The interior is the poshest yet for a Focus, it's relatively spacious, and has a decent sized hatchback boot.

The Mercedes A-Class is a sensible family hatchback that’s also an aspirational purchase. Buy it and you get a car with smart styling and a lovely interior that’s packed full of unbelievable technology. It’s for this reason that the A-Class won the Game-changer Award at carwow’s 2018 Car of the Year Awards. It’s not all style and no substance, though, the A-Class is a tidy car to drive that’s available with a decent range of engines.

No list of the best hatchbacks is complete without the Volkswagen Golf. For decades it has always been a well-built and spacious family hatchback that’s easy to drive and pleasant to live with. And although the VW Golf isn’t a huge car, its boot is big enough to cope with taking the family’s luggage when you head off on holiday.

When it comes to outright space, few hatchback cars provide quite so much for the money as the Skoda Octavia. It has a simply huge boot, but also more generous rear leg room than all of its closest alternatives. Add to that a great touchscreen infotainment system and lots of standard equipment and you’ve got a brilliantly rounded family hatchback.

There’s not much to separate the Audi A3 from the VW Golf, but if you value a high-quality interior and don’t mind paying slightly more for it, then it makes a superb choice. Like the Golf, it drives extremely well, has space for four adults onboard and, importantly, has a practical hatchback boot.

The Mazda 3 has sharp look, a stylish interior, an easy-to-use infotainment system and a range of efficient engines that could tempt you away even more premium German hatchbacks. It’s sporty to drive too, although there are more practical hatchback cars.

The SEAT Leon is a sporty-yet practical hatchback car with a sharper look than the mechanically similar VW Golf. It may not be quite as sharp-looking on the inside, but it's easy to use and this hatchback is big enough for four passengers.

The Volkswagen Polo isn’t just a great small hatchback – it’s a great car, full stop. There’s a real sense of quality running through the Polo’s interior and it has space for four adults and a big hatchback boot for a small car. The Polo’s an easy car to drive and comes with a brilliant engine range. All these skills won it the Little Legend award at carwow’s 2018 Car of the Year Awards.

The Ford Fiesta is a small hatchback that has room for the family and a couple of suitcases in its boot. What sets the Fiesta apart though, is that you can actually enjoy driving it when you get the car to yourself. It’s available with a variety of nippy turbocharged engines that are cheap to run.

The Skoda Fabia is an impressively practical little car. There’s more than enough space in the front for tall drivers to stretch out and there’s still enough room left over in the back for two six-foot-tall passengers to get comfy. Behind them, the Fabia’s hatchback boot will take a couple of large suitcases.

The Audi A1 isn’t particularly cheap, but it does provide some of the best wow factor inside of any small hatchback. Indeed, its cabin is high quality and has a striking design. There’s also a choice of small but punchy (yet frugal) engines.

With is sharper looks, the Spanish Seat Ibiza is the VW Polo’s sportier cousin. It’s slightly behind on interior quality, but is cheaper to buy too, while retaining all that’s great about the Polo’s space and practicality, comfy drive and efficient engines.

The Honda Civic Type R’s boy racer looks have made it the source of some controversy, but that loud styling matches the hatchback’s performance. It’s incredibly fun to drive, boasting both the speed and cornering power of a full-blooded race car. Yet, the Civic Type R is also comfy and practical. It has a big boot, cosy seats and feels smooth on the motorway.

A 2.0-litre, turbocharged engine makes the VW Golf R a nippy little car to drive. It goes from 0-60mph in just 5.1 seconds, while making sure that you feel comfy the entire time. The sports seats hold you in place well during some crazier turns (of which there will be many) and the infotainment is equipped with all the bells and whistles you’d want from a £30,000 hatchback.

The Hyundai i30 N is the manufacturer’s first attempt at making a hot hatch – and they hit a home run with it! It may not look as boisterous as a Honda Civic Type R, but its roaring exhausts definitely sound the part as you shoot from 0-62mph in 6.4 seconds. It’s faster and cooler than the regular i30 hatchback, yet still retains that car’s practicality.

As a rear-wheel-drive hot hatch, the BMW M140i is as amusing as the day is long in corners, although it isn’t quite as quick in the straights as other, four-wheel-drive alternatives. The interior materials are all extremely high-quality and well-built. Practicality-wise, it has a big boot but isn’t quite as roomy for rear passengers.

The Ford Fiesta ST’s 1.5-litre, 200hp engine blasts you from 0-62mph in 6.7 seconds (it can accelerate even faster if you pay £850 for the Ford Performance Pack!), before topping out at 144mph. Sure, while the interior isn’t quite as exciting-looking some others’ on this list, it’s still rather comfortable in there.