We’re at a turning point for high-performance cars

IF you want an example of how hard car makers have to work to please performance-car enthusiasts while still hitting ever-tightening targets on average CO2 emissions, turn to page eight. Here is the new car from Cupra – the supposed performance and premium division of SEAT – and while it’s on offer with up to 306bhp, it’s also available as a plug-in hybrid.

History tells us that where one VW Group brand goes, the rest follow. And sure enough, we already know that Skoda is planning to expand the vRS line-up of its new Octavia to include a plug-in hybrid alongside the petrol and diesel editions. The new VW Golf GTI will still be a regular turbocharged petrol car when we see it next week – but in the medium term? It’s hard to imagine that the ‘hot’ GTE hybrid model won’t become the de facto ‘mainstream’ fast Golf over the next few years.

It seems, in fact, that we could be heading for a split in the hot hatch market in the next 24 months, as car companies take differing approaches to fulfilling the demand for this type of car. For some, like Cupra and Skoda, electrification is one way around the problem.

Others, like Mercedes or Honda, are still focused on pure-petrol performance but by gum, you’ll have to pay for it. The AMG A45 S tested this week (page 28) has a list price of £56k. And Honda hasn’t even dared to give us a figure yet for the extra-hardcore Civic Type R outlined on page 10. I suppose we should be grateful that consumers are being given the choice – for now, at least.

If all this talk of plug-in performance cars and pureelectric saloons seems a bit high-end, we hope that our used-car special will be a useful counterpoint. We’ve rounded up some of the best-selling cars in Britain and looked back through their various generations to come up with a stellar list of second-hand buys, starting at just £250. It’s a handy reminder that in the current market, great cars can still be perfectly affordable.