The Real Pioneers: Hot hatchbacks

The comely A112, designed by Marcello Gandini at Bertone, was unveiled at the 1969 Turin Show, two years before the higher performance A112 Abarth was launched. It was Abarth’s first creation for Fiat and would prove by far the most significant.

Before the Fiat takeover, Italo-Austrian Carlo Abarth’s company made some of Italy’s finest sports cars. Abarth’s simple but sumptuously designed machines from the ’50s and ’60s were major styling inspirations for Gordon Murray’s T.33 and T.50 supercars. Gordon himself owns 11 classic Abarths. ‘My designers and I pore over my Abarths,’ Gordon once told me. ‘Their detailing is often outstanding.’

Sadly, Abarth is now a Fiat badge of sporting convenience. The famous scorpion logo, now widely plastered on hot Fiat 500s, was the founder’s star sign. Yet its first use for Fiat was at least on a car of huge significance, even if the A112 Abarth rarely gets the pioneering plaudits it deserves.

Initially this small and light car – at 3.2 metres it was barely longer than a Mini – used a 982cc (up from 903cc) engine and twin-barrel carburettors, as well as a hotter camshaft. Maximum power was 58bhp at 6600rpm, which might not sound like much, but a huge improvement on the 41bhp of the base engine. By 1975 this had improved to 70bhp (from 1059cc) and included a five-speed gearbox. Sporting touches included alloy wheels, a tachometer and three-spoke aluminium steering wheel, its rim leather-lined. In many ways it was like a more mechanically sophisticated hatch version of a contemporary Mini Cooper S. Like the Cooper S, it also soon became a competition car of considerable renown.

At this stage some well-informed American Ti readers may be crying foul. They might argue, with some justification, that it was in America, not Italy, that the performance hatchback was born. The weirdly styled and oddly named Gremlin – American Motors’ attempt to fight GM and Ford in the subcompact market – was rear-wheel drive, not front. But it was most certainly a hatchback and, with a 3.8-litre 145bhp six under the bonnet, it was quick for a car launched in 1970. In 1972, it got a 5.0-litre V8.

It was also famously awful to drive. It was nose heavy, rode poorly, and would hop, skip and jump on the sort of challenging sinuous roads over which an A112 Abarth would dance majestically. So, it may well be the first ‘hot’ hatch. But nobody copied it. Time magazine called the Gremlin one of the 50 worst cars of all time.

So, for the ongoing development of the hot hatch, we must return to Europe. The Simca 1100 Ti of 1973 deserves scrutiny, an 85bhp little rocket that took all the innovative niceties of the bread-and-butter 1100, but with added gusto.

The mainstream Simca 1100 combined front-drive, a transverse engine, independent suspension – using front wishbones, not struts – and even had folding rear seats. It predated Fiat’s more celebrated 128 (and 127) and featured most of the building blocks of the modern family hatch. The Ti version added more power, front and rear spoilers, alloys and a black grille: 0-60mph took less than 12 seconds, which was pretty brisk for its day.

And before we welcome the Golf GTI to market, there was Renault’s 5 Alpine, known as the 5 Gordini in the UK because rival Simca then had the rights to the Alpine name, forcing a UK-only badge swap.

The first of what would become a succession of fine feisty Renault 5s, the Gordini used a 92bhp 1.4-litre unit instead of the standard and far feebler 1.1 and it beat the GTI to market by a couple of months. The pair would be the early dominant hot hatch players, pioneers of a new and hugely popular type of performance car.

But if the 5 Gordini was a tasty preview, the Golf GTI was the trend setter. Like quite a few famous performance cars, the GTI project began more as a hobby than an engineering assignment. Motor racing mad PR boss Anton Konrad proposed a ‘Sport Golf’ to management colleagues back in March 1973, over a year before the mainstream Golf was launched. His fellow bosses felt that under-the-cosh Volkswagen, still battling with retiring the failing Beetle and finessing the upcoming new Golf, had quite enough on their plates.

A year later, over beer and sandwiches at Konrad’s home, a small group including technology board member Herbert Schuster met to plot a new type of Golf and a new type of car. In early 1975, the secret skunkworks project was presented to management. It was greenlit on 28 May 1975, a few months before a concept was displayed at the Frankfurt Show.

The design was partly the work of Volkswagen design boss Herbert Schäfer – who added the radiator grille red stripes, spoilers and plastic wheel arch extensions – and partly of Gunhild Liljequist, from the fabrics and colour department. The former porcelain painter and chocolate box designer was charged with turning the mainstream Golf’s cabin into something sporty.

Her three major brainwaves were the distinctive tartan trim – inspired by British punk fashion designers on her frequent visits to the UK – the golf ball gear knob and the distinctive three-spoke ‘spittoon’ steering wheel, including deeply recessed centre hub. She retired from Volkswagen in 1991 and died in 2002, aged 86. On her death, VW’s corporate tribute said, ‘her legacy is literally stitched into the fabric of Volkswagen’.

The production GTI used a fuel-injected 110 bhp 1.6-litre four, borrowed from the Audi 80 GTE, and a four-speed ‘box. An autobahn friendly five-speeder came in 1979. Zero to 60 took nine seconds. At just 840 kg, it was brisk, sure-footed, fun and easy to drive fast. The GTI was also relatively inexpensive, reliable and classless.

When unveiled, Volkswagen expected to sell 5000 units. No right-hand drive cars were planned. Production soon rocketed from 50 to 500 a day. In the first year, VW sold 30,000. A right-hand UK-spec car finally reached our shores in the summer of 1979. By the time production of the Mk1 GTI ended in 1983, Volkswagen had made nearly half a million of them.

Subsequent fast Golfs showcased a bewildering variety of technology, as Volkswagen sought to stay ahead of the increasingly frenzied competition. This included 16-valve engines (Mk2), supercharging and 4×4 (Mk2), a VR6 (Mk3), turbocharging (Mk4), a diesel TDI (Mk4), five-cylinder power (Mk4), 20-valve engine (Mk4), DSG shift (Mk5), electronic diff lock (Mk6), track-oriented Clubsport (Mk7), and more. Most versions – we’re now up to Mk8.5 – have been good, and several (Mk1, Mk5 and Mk7) were very good indeed. A few – Mk3, Mk4 and Mk8 – have disappointed, as Volkswagen got complacent and ignored the legacy bequeathed by the lively mechanical zestfulness of the original.

The Mk1’s success kickstarted a bevy of rival hot hatches and some were very good indeed. The feisty R5 GT Turbo thrilled, the hyper-agile 205 GTI 1.9 entertained, the fine-handling Fiesta ST (especially the Mk7) amazed, and the seriously quick Civic Type R expanded the already considerable hot hatch performance envelope.

If there’s a downside to these pocket rockets, it’s that they’ve killed pukka sports cars and coupés. But you can see the reason. Why buy a compromised and cramped two-seater or 2+2 when you can get all the performance and fun – and still accommodate friends or family and have enough luggage space for a week’s holiday?

It’s a breed of car that still amazes and entertains, as a brief drive in the fabulous WRC-based Toyota GR Yaris soon proves. There are even fun electric hot hatches. And the Golf GTI was the catalyst.

Just don’t call it the first.