Who moved my cheese?

As with life, the car industry can be a very unpredictable business and full of surprises. Like what Subaru’s just done.In times gone by, when you bought a turbo-charged Subaru Impreza, you always knew exactly what you’d be in for: A noisy but punchy flat-four engine, sublime handling and blinging-in-the-ghetto styling.

Yes, your car would be tarted up with boisterous wings and spoilers and to fit the show, there wasn’t much in the way of practicality, refinement or finesse. It’s not the kind of car you’d show off to your in-laws and if you had a family, they’d likely complain about the harsh ride, and noisy, Datsun-like cabin. Yet its performance potential went unmatched by anything but super sedans.

A hot hatchback was from a lower league. In fact, it wasn’t long ago that we were crowning the Volkswagen Golf GTI king as of the hot hatchbacks. Then along came the BMW 130i, followed by the new Audi S3 and Golf R32 and suddenly we were raving about the dawn of the ‘mega hatch’, a new breed of ultra-quick hatchbacks for those that want to rise above the GTI class and challenge even the Subaru Impreza WRX in performance.

We did exactly that a few months back when we pitched the new S3 and R32 against the Prodrive WRX and though its dynamic edge had been eroded by the new hatches, it couldn’t match their overall finesse. Now that game’s just been turned on its head. Subaru has launched an all-new and more refined Impreza, in hatchback format to boot.

Shock of the day?

And there’s yet another Japanese contender that’s snuck in the back door, with an engine output almost matching the best in this pack and a price tag that blows them all out the water. Could the new Mazda3 MPS be the shock of the day? Bear in mind that these mega hatches are not all from the same mould.

The Audi and BMW are both compact, low-slung hatchbacks, while the Subaru and Mazda both have taller and more practical shells. They’re even more different beneath the skin, with turbocharged fours in all but the six-pot BMW, sending their power to all wheels in the Audi and Subaru, the front wheels in the Mazda and rear wheels in the BMW.

They are, however, all in a relatively similar performance league, and appeal to those with something in the region of R300K to blow on an exciting new car. They’re all fairly closely matched in power to weight terms, but our test equipment did reveal some surprising differences.

In our high-altitude 0-100km/h acceleration tests, the Audi and BMW came in on an equal footing, with the Subaru and Mazda following more than a second behind. Bear in mind that our pre-launch Subaru unit had very low mileage, so it should do a little better when it’s back for a re-test. The Mazda, though tested under normal conditions, was also somewhat slower than we’d expected.