LITTLE WONDERS
CAR OF THE YEAR: BEST OF THE HATCHBACKS
Small cars are a big deal. The Mazda3 unseated Holden’s homegrown Commodore as the best-selling car in Australia in 2010, putting compact hatchbacks on pole position before dual-cab utes scrambled to the top of the heap. But buyers are moving to SUVs as their vehicle of choice and the Mazda3 has slipped from the top 10 on the sales charts, tallying less than half its peak figures.
So hatchbacks need to be better than ever to woo customers. We took three of the best, measuring them against our Car of the Year criteria — value for money, performance, design, technology and safety — to determine which rules the roost.
FORD FOCUS TREND
The Focus arrived in December last year, just missing the 2018 deadline for our Car of the Year testing. Ford took a bold approach, moving the Focus upmarket in search of profitability.
Forget $19,990 drive-away specials from the likes of Hyundai and Kia, as every Focus has a turbo engine, eight-speed automatic transmission and important safety features such as autonomous emergency braking.
The cheapest Focus is $25,990 plus onroads. Buyers can spend $1250 on a safety pack with active cruise control, blind spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert, pushing it beyond $30,000 drive-away.
Its five-year warranty helps sweeten the deal, as does servicing that averages less than $300 a year for five years — the cheapest here.
Infotainment comes via an eight-inch touchscreen display with satnav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity. The driver gets a small additional digital readout in the dash.
The cabin is spacious front and rear, there is plenty of boot space but the interior’s drab plastics don’t quite match the price tag.
Ford’s contender wins points with excellent dynamics that make it one of the best cars in its class to drive. Quick steering, firm brakes and well-controlled but comfortable suspension gel sweetly with a torquey little engine.
With just three cylinders, the Ford’s 1.5-litre turbo packs plenty of go — 134kW/240Nm — for effortless progress.
The only blot on the driving experience is that the eight-speeder can be a little clumsy, shifting to high gears in pursuit of fuel economy. Ford’s rotary controller for choosing gears isn’t as intuitive as a conventional auto lever and the transmission can thump into gear when moving between drive and reverse.
The claimed thirst of 6.4L/100km is OK for a car this size but you’ll use more in the real world.
AUDI A1
Want a champagne badge for beer money? The A1 has you covered. As the only luxury marque with a sub-$35,000 entry point, Audi aims to tempt buyers away from mainstream brands.
It looks great inside and out, with crisp lines, pleasing proportions and impressive tech.
The 10.25-inch digital dashboard is accompanied by an 8.8-inch central screen, making most alternatives feel low-tech by comparison.
From $32,350 plus on-roads, or about
$38,000 drive-away, the A1 is not cheap and isn’t overly burdened by equipment.
Satnav, active cruise control, smart keys and spare tyre aren’t available as options for the entry-level A1 but can be had on more expensive variants. Likewise, the base A1 has the bare minimum of safety kit needed for a five-star ANCAP rating — important gear such as blind spot monitoring is missing.
Customers keen on the cheapest Audi get a 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo. Outputs of 85kW/200Nm might sound modest but are more than adequate for a car this size, as the A1 is closer in size to a Toyota Yaris than the larger Corolla.
Turning a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, the engine claims 5.4L/100km. Once again, we reckon you’ll consume more, especially if you turn off the annoying stop-start fuel saving tech that kills the engine before you come to rest in traffic, then fires it up as you ease off the brakes.