![\"Golf](\"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/why-hatchbacks-still-outshine-suvs-for-everyday-driving.jpg\" "\\"Golf")
<\/a><\/p>\nHatchbacks are smaller, lighter and cheaper than SUVs \u2013 and better, too<\/p>\n
It was at once an unsatisfying and actually a very satisfying verdict for a group test.<\/a> When I put the revised Volkswagen Golf<\/a> against a pair of rivals in the Toyota Corolla<\/a> and Peugeot 308<\/a> last August,\u00a0the overarching conclusion was that all three were thoroughly recommendable.<\/p>\n There were a bunch of alternatives that I didn\u2019t include, simply because 10-car group tests are a logistical nightmare, but we could have brought the Mazda 3<\/a>, the Honda Civic<\/a> and the Ford Focus <\/a>and the result would have been broadly the same.<\/p>\n You might conclude, then, that it doesn\u2019t matter which C-segment hatchback you pick, because they\u2019re all white goods. The opposite is true, though: in a world filled with slightly mediocre cars, here\u2019s a market segment that is still bursting at the seams with excellence.<\/p>\n Although SUVs and crossovers have asserted dominance in recent years, combustion-engined C-segment hatchbacks<\/a> have been the bedrock of the European car market, selling in their millions.<\/p>\n As such, manufacturers have invested money, time and effort into making them\u00a0really good, and it shows. In many ways, the C-segment hatchback\u00a0is simply peak car \u2013 as if Goldilocks turned\u00a0out to be an automotive engineer rather than\u00a0a porridge-pilfering vagrant.<\/p>\n They\u2019re just the\u00a0right size for European roads: not so small\u00a0that you feel like you\u2019re driving a Cozy Coupe and not so big that they\u2019re a struggle to park\u00a0or squeeze down hedge-lined country lanes.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can just about fit a family in but you\u2019re not then lugging around a tonne of redundant\u00a0metal when you drive it by yourself.<\/p>\n That rightness of size starts a virtuous circle. Because these cars are not excessively heavy or excessively tall, they don\u2019t need big engines\u00a0to manage good performance. (The 148bhp petrol Golf does 0-62mph in 8.4sec. Do you\u00a0really need more?)<\/p>\n And because they don\u2019t have big engines, they can manage 50mpg without trying. Go for a diesel (if you can find one) or a hybrid and 70mpg could be within reach.<\/p>\n Because there isn\u2019t all that much weight or height to control, the suspension can be fairly soft, which means that ride and handling needn\u2019t be a compromise: you can have tight body control and direct steering without the ride turning rough.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all done with less than exotic components, which means they\u2019re not ridiculously expensive if they ever need replacing. Pair it with some 16in wheels with chunky tyres and you\u2019re really winning: pillowy ride comfort and cheap tyres. Talking about cheap: any hatchback is usually a few thousand pounds cheaper than the equivalent SUV<\/a>.<\/p>\n Quietly great to drive, practical, economical and affordable: if the C-segment hatchback were introduced today as a new idea or product, we would all go mad for it and call it a game-changer.<\/p>\n But because we have had the Golf\u00a0for 50 years, the Corolla for 40 years and the\u00a0Peugeot 306\/308 for 30 years, familiarity has\u00a0bred contempt. They are just seen as the standard, the thing that has always existed,\u00a0the car your parents drove.<\/p>\n