Search the Community

Nowadays, when we mention the term pocket rocket (with regards to automobiles) the first car or cars that comes to our minds are models such as the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Peugeot 207 GTI and the Mini Cooper JCWs. The Japanese have their hot hatches too, for example the Suzuki Swift Sport. These are the examples of today

[extract] The C30 is a three-door, four-seater hatchback produced by Volvo that was officially unveiled at the 2006 Paris Motor Show. The exterior design of the C30 is based on the 2001 SCC concept car, which was inspired by the 1800ES, the estate version of the P1800 Coupe. Six years on, the Swedish automaker has announced that the production of the brand

[extract] With the recent launch of the next generation Mercedes Benz A-Class (pictured above), Mercedes Benz is serious in getting into the luxury hatchback market segment and the German automaker

The Hyundai Veloster (pictured above) has just been released recently and it is one fine looking hatchback. And for those who craves for more power, there is a turbo version (pictured below). There are rumours going around that Hyundai is working on a more powerful version of the Veloster and it would put the car in the hot hatch category with the likes of the Volkswagen GTI and Ford Focus ST. The Hyundai Veloster Turbo shares many parts with the normal Veloster model (for example, same suspension set-up) and some believed that Hyundai has left the Veloster Turbo in this manner to make way for more improvements. The Veloster Turbo currently delivers around 186bhp with roughly 265Nm of torque. Pretty good from a 1.6-litre turbocharged engine. If these rumours are to be true, we should expect an upgrade in suspension set-up, preferably with mechanically adjustable dampeners and independent rear suspension instead of the current V-beam rear set-up. A lower ride would make sense if the car is going to get more power. As for the engine, I am not really sure if more power could be extracted out from the current 1.6-litre turbocharged engine. One option is to feature the 2.0-litre engine from the Hyundai Genesis Coupe which is able to deliver around 274bhp and with 373Nm of torque (with premium unleaded fuel). But it is not known if this option would be financially feasible for the company. Maybe it is still possible to extract a bit more power from the current 1.6-litre powerplant. The Veloster Turbo has just reached our shores and I feel that this is the type of car local consumers would like to take a much closer look at; reasonable engine displacement size with a rather powerful engine. And a more powerful version could probably take on the continental hatchbacks that has dominated the hot hatch segment for many years. Photo credit: Net Car Show

[extract] Every time Volkswagen releases a new Golf GTI model, it gets more powerful and faster. The current Golf GTI makes around 210bhp and with 280Nm of torque. Pretty powerful for a hatchback but there are other more powerful alternatives if someone

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sg...ng_ferrari.html

Since its introduction in the mid 70s, no other hatchbacks have managed to knock the Golf from the throne, is it correct to say this? the old escort, then the focus; the Astra (?), more recently the 1-series, not forgetting a few other european hatchbacks like the 305-308, the magene, C4, Bravo, Alfa hatchback, etc, from japan: Civic hatchback, and all the others HBs, all more or less fail.... So far, which model(s) come close to knocking it off? why it's so hard to beat? (I am not a Golf fan)

Which MPV is the original one? the Renault Espace? Hatchback: ?? SUV: ?? Cabrio: ?? Sports Wagon: ?? Sports 2dr Wagon (with a rear hatchdoor): ?? (diff from above, which is 4dr+hatchdoor) 2+2: ?? Mini MPV: ?? Changeable (from sports to pickup to wagon etc): ?? Soft off-road: ?? Crossover: ?? Beng car: ??

The hot hatch segment has grew rapidly over the last few years and today, these cars are able to deliver performance that was not imaginable in the small hatch segment roughly ten years ago. The performance of larger sized hot hatches are moving towards the sports car category and the space left behind are being taken up by a new generation of performance orientated subcompacts. And Ford has presented the all new 2013 Ford Fiesta ST as part of this new generation. Ford has released pictures of a production ready version of the 2013 Ford Fiesta which the company will unveil during the 2012 Geneva Motor Show. It is confirmed that the car will be launched first in the European market by 2013. The previous Fiesta ST was last offered in 2008 and fans of the car were clamouring for a new model ever since. Ford didn

[extract] Reports of Volvo

Price very close for 2007 car, which is better in terms of FC and road handling? Choosing 2nd car for my wife.

I think it has to be the VW Sirocco. What do you think. The front is fierce, the back looks great and wide. Very nice. Only downside? Its cramp (expected for a small hatch) and its FF, rather than 4WD.

Quite like the sporty 3 door hatch back and not very expensive to own. Rare on the road. Anybody has comments for this model of car ? Tempting to get 1 but not sure if it's recommended, like reliability and maintenance. Currently driving a pica so this is kinda a upgrade, backside itchy haha. http://www.sgcarmart.com/used_cars/info.ph...991&DL=1000 http://www.sgcarmart.com/used_cars/info.ph...544&DL=1002

It will only be a matter of days to the launch of Peugeot's all new 208 in October 2011. Directly aimed at the likes of the Ford Fiesta and the Renault Clio, it is considered to be the most important model of the year for the automaker due to the supermini's popularity, especially in its native country. It will be smaller and lighter than the car it replaces, but the newcomer is aiming to make an even bigger splash than the top selling 207, thanks to distinctive looks and efficient engines. It will be one of the first cars in the supermini class to feature a removable touchscreen cabin-control system that owes at least some of its design to that of the iPad. With functions to upload and store maps, music and more, the device looks likely to be offered as standard on all but entry-level models. Leading the charge will be this sporty three-door version, which debuts alongside the five-door model. Both three and five-door cars will offer a wide range of petrol and diesel engines - including an innovative three-cylinder turocharged petrol unit offering almost 70mpg. However the star of the show is set to be a new 211bhp evolution of the 1.6-litre THP turbocharged engine available in the RCZ. The car, which some describes it as a spiritual successor to the famed 205 GTi, will be one of the fastest, most powerful small Peugeots ever built. Drivers can expect race-style bucket seats, and a thick rimmed steering wheel. The car will also get a large rear wing, and special trim on the sills and wheelarches to make it look that little bit meaner than the standard model. But despite this focus on performance, the car will also sport the latest fuel saving technologies, with stop and start and direct injection. With variable valve timing and a potent turbocharger the power on offer will only be one part of the effort to make this car a hot hatch to watch out for.

Let's play a game From the list below, place in order, in your opinion, the nicest looking to the least appealing hatchbacks. Not engine, Not performance, Not value for money....just the looks! - Mazda 3 Hatchback - Kia Cerato Hatchback - Subaru Impreza hatchback - VW Golf - Fiat Bravo - Toyota Auris - Audi A3 - Nissan Latio Hatchback - Opel Astra - Hyundai i30

The Forte hatchback joins the Cerato Forte sedan and Forte Koup coupe in Kia's local line-up, and strengthens Kia's presence in Singapore's vital family car segment. "The latest Forte is designed to appeal especially to those consumers with young families who prefer a hatchback for its style and enhanced practicality," said Chin Kee Min, Senior Manager for KIA Operations, Cycle & Carriage KIA Pte Ltd. Mr Chin added. "The availability of this third body-style for our mid-size car segment will enable Kia to meet the needs of a broader range of customers. This derivative will boost total Forte sales to an even higher level by capturing a larger market share." The Forte hatchback retains the same width, height and wheelbase as the Cerato Forte sedan, with only the rear overhang reduced by 190mm, making it 4340mm long. Despite the shorter length, the Forte hatchback still has a reasonable cargo capacity of 385 litres. The new Forte hatchback also comes with the improvements that were recently introduced on the rest of the Forte range, like the new six-speed automatic gearbox that comes with steering-mounted paddle shifters. Other new features on the Forte hatchback include the LED indicators on the door mirrors, and integrated Bluetooth system for the built-in head unit. Quote from Sgcarmart.com It looks better than the sedan....what do you all think..bro out there, I think hyundai might bring in the I40 to go head to head with this car

dear all... 1ST AND FOREMOST.... this thread is not about Malay drivers or Red-Plates... just so happen this Malay Red-plate pissed me off... Lately my mood has been very down... due to being over-worked, stress... moving hse... wife problems... honestly with all these problems should be damn bad mood... but no leh... i so depressed and sian that i have to fake looking happy and cheerful at work... especially in front of my customers... and to my surprise, when on the road kanna cut, instead of blasting my horns, just cursed him in my heart... i had more stressful problems to deal with than idiotic drivers... yesterday after an event at Sembawang, while leaving for hm, decided to go in JB top up some petrol n buy ciggies... not much of a jam... took my own sweet time and came out in abt an hour... after getting out of Woodlands checkpoint, once i entered the bridge into BKE, there was this snail Blue Aveo on the right lane going at maybe 50km/h... its ok i thought, he's probably picking up speed... next 10secs still snail speed... so i high beam... still snail speed... i still waiting for him to chnage lane so that i can speed up... so i tailgate very close to show him i wanna speed up... and he tap his brake.... i cut left wind down my window and stared at him... (by then behind got a row of cars liao)... all the passengers looked at me... all except the driver... so i shouted ..."you tap the brake ah?... you cheesepie knn... fish you bus-third... ni na bu cheespie..."... STILL the driver looked infront while the (i presume) mother and wife all looking at me... i gave a final middle finger good-bye and speed off on the 2nd lane to cut into SLE... while he was still holding up a long row of traffic on the 1st lane... c--k sia i was kinda disappointed at myself for losing it... but i told myself this would not have happened if the asshol3 did not tap his brake... i mean wtf?... want to tio tai chi ah?... knn i am ok with slow drivers... my mun is... just keep left lah... bloody fisher... if it wasnt because the whole family was in the car i would have scolded even more... haiz... dont know how many strands of hair i lost over this incident....

As per title: http://www.mycarforum.com/blog/myautoblog/...into-singapore/ Personally i feel the styling a bit odd. The front part is the same as the sedan but the back part (which design is actually ok for me) looks like it was from another car and being fused with the front part making it look a bit of a frankenstein car. Actually wat may have been a better idea was to increase the size of the car to something like the nissan juke and call is classify it as an SAV (sport activity vehicle). of course the front part design cannot use forte one.

As above... Any bros noe of any PIs bringing it in? I dun see any on sg carmart... Its the supposedly STI Spec C ver only available for Jap but with a 2.0 turbo!

Cars have grown in size over the years. In the late 1960s the Toyota Corolla was a tiny, tiny car. It was about the size of a peanut, or a Perodua Kelisa with a boot. It then grew into something the size of a decent sized 4 door car in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. It was basically the size of the current Toyota Vios or the earlier Soluna. And then by the 1990s, it grew into something slightly larger, more comfortable and heavier. By 2010, the Corolla had grown into a bulbous car the size of a 1980s Toyota Corona, which was the large family sedan of that era. So everything has up-sized and new models like the Vios has had to come in to fill the original gap left by the Corolla. And there you have newer and newer small models. Now those that remember will note that the Vios was originally called the Soluna, a basic mid-sized 4 door sedan that was built to a certain specification and budgetary standard. It was basically a no frills car for those on a budget. It was actually conceived to fill in a gap that the Corolla left vacant when it went slightly upscale (from a point of view) and when it went up in size. And now, if you readers have noticed, the Soluna was replaced by the Vios and now in its second generation Vios form, is pretty well equipped and certain variants aren't exactly cheap anymore, especially for emerging economies and third world countries. So what we now see is another gap that would need to be filled. Hence the low cost, newly produced Toyota Etios, made specifically for emerging markets like India, China, Brazil, Indonesia and Thailand. The 4.265mm long sedan has a 595liters sized boot and is powered by a newly developed 1.5L, 16V DOHC engine coupled to a 5-Speed manual transmission (and most probably the hardest and maybe the thinnest possible of all plastics ever to appear on a car's dashboard). Currently in production in India, the Etios will be available in four variants, J, G, V and VX, with prices ranging between 4.96 Lakhs and 6.9 Lakhs making it Toyota's most affordable offering in India (and it is also Toyota's first major sales offensive in the Indian family car market). The thing is, who's to say that it won't be sold in Singapore or even Malaysia? It will be built from cheaper plastics and more rudimentary technology (but I dig the fluted roof design - adding rigidity but using thinner steel?), but it would certainly keep its Toyota derived quality control which would make it a decent (but not memorable or great) to drive. If newer generations of the Vios ends up going slightly more upscale and larger there would certainly be another gap to fill. The Etios could end up on sale in more developed and sophisticated car markets. What do you readers think? Would any of you go for a Toyota sedan that is cheaper but more crude?

Saw a few in the Used Car market of Mazda 3 GT, and mostly is about 4 years and above. I realised those 3 years and newer are named Mazda 3 HB, also saw some in the Used Car Market. What is the different of the Mazda 3 GT and Mazda 3 HB ? Any1 (ex-owner and current owner) can give some feedback of this Hatchback of this Pro and Cons

I rented a 2005 cerato hatchback auto and immediately went to pump up all the 4 tyres to 255KPA hoping for reasonable FC but it returned only 10km/litre. me and wifey not very heavy footed. sometimes i off aircon too. quite alot of highway travel too. Hope my coming forte has MUCH better FC!

[extract] Citro

Let's look at a S$65,000 or thereabouts car (depending on the COE of course) that had recently been launched and see whether its any good to drive it or not. The car in question is the Mazda 2 Sedan 1.5 automatic. Yes, the hatchback has been around for two years and it has basically taken Mazda that amount of time to come out with a sedan version of it for the sedan loving Asians. I think one of the reason people in this region like sedans is because it looks a little more dignified and bigger looking than something without a boot. Actually the real reason we Asians like sedans is the fact that we like to carry durians, belacan (fermented prawn paste) and many other naturally bad smelling good food that we tend to love eating so much. A boot would separate the smelly food from the passenger cabin where unlike a hatchback a piece of cardboard acting as the parcel shelf only separates the passenger cabin from the boot space. Of course you still get the smell of durians in a sedan as its not really air tight, but it is lessened compared to a hatch. Ergo, this is the reason Asians prefer sedans over hatchbacks. Anyway the Mazda 2 Sedan is a hatchback that has been redesigned to have a boot instead of a hatch. Hence the sheet metal from the B pillar rearwards is redesigned. Wheelbase is similar and the rear legroom is as per the hatchback, therefore adequate. If you're looking for Toyota Camry like rear space within this category you're expecting too much. Now when it comes to the styling of the car it is of my opinion that Mazda have been pretty successful in the conversion from hatch to sedan (with a boot that would fit baby strollers with ease). It does not look like a dumpy, unbalanced and ugly looking 2nd generation Honda City or a dumpy, unbalanced and ugly like the new (basically for China) Peugeot 207 sedan. Hey, they are both hideously similar so they deserve the same description. Both are really bad looking hatch to sedan designs. Period. So it looks good and even after adding the boot the car is still light, weighing only 30kgs heavier than the hatchback version. Mazda still designs their cars light even with all the usual safety equipment, and this helps in how the car handles. Lightness also helps with the performance of the car too. The 103bhp 137Nm engine provides ample propulsion for this 1051kg sedan. But when you compare this against the 1098kg Toyota Vios (109bhp 141Nm) or 1130kg for the Honda City (120bhp 145Nm), the weight advantage is negated by the extra power/torque of the other cars. But the good thing is that the lighter weight allows the Mazda to burn less petrol in order to achieve the same level of performance as the heavier Vios or City. So you would seem to be the more eco-friendly person if you drove a Mazda 2 over the other two. However any small, built to a price sedan is going to have merely adequate performance. But if its main purpose is to spend most of its life in an urban environment, with maximum speeds hovering around the 70-90km/h mark the Mazda 2 does this pretty well. The controls are like the Mazda 2 hatchback and nothing has changed. The seats are good and I could find a nice driving position pretty quickly. It is like anyone can can jump in and drive it fast straightaway without any problems. The ride is pretty good on the 195/45/16 tires (the version I tried had this specced), the car turns on a dime and the electrically assisted steering has some feedback and feels pretty natural most of the time unlike some other wheels of the same type. The car has pretty good road manners at urban driving speeds and when you up the ante and do some high speed driving the Mazda 2 sedan still delivers. It is agile and it does handle well with this rim and tire combination. If you take sharp corners at around 80km/h it feels very neutral. You could make steering correction at speeds above 120km/h and it does not get unsettled. Front end is high and it will mildly understeer in-extremis but it is quite throttle adjustable at the limit. However the lack of grunt or pulling power somewhat limits this. This may be due to the fact that the car had less than a thousand kilos on its clock and you can't really expect a small family sedan to do wonders with only 137Nm of torque. But couple this lack of torque with an unintuitive autobox its not so nice if you're into spirited driving. When left to its own devices the 4 speed automatic gearbox somehow likes to be in a gear higher than what I would have liked in mid-corner. It doesn't shift down fast enough on full throttle after you are done braking and when you want to get back on the power. It isn't as intuitive as some other gearboxes as it does not shift down when you wish it would. So you're out of the power band and performance suffers mid-corner. So if you want to be in a lower gear, you have to shift down manually before the corner. This is the only way to overcome this slightly slow transmission if you want to do some spirited driving. The ride doesn't suffer at high speeds and even with that torsion beam rear suspension it does not unsettle easily over large bumps. This is one happy handling small sedan. Oh yeah, the brakes are adequate for the car. I have no complaints except that I would like better pedal modulation. But that's nitpicking. So does it have any faults other than the presumed lack of torque and the sedate gearbox? Engine noise and wind noise. Too much of both intruding the passenger cabin at high revs. If you're a sedate (read very conservative and slow driver) these and the earlier mentioned slow acting gearbox wouldn't be a problem as you'd never even hit 4,000rpm in this car. But cross the 4,500rpm threshold, things get pretty loud and trashy. Maybe this is down to keeping the car light or down to a cost until it lacks more soundproofing. Aside from engine noise, at speeds above 120km/h there is a noticeable amount of wind noise around the A-pillars, so high speed cruising in this car isn't too quiet. This could be down to lack of aerodynamic development due to cost or the car I drove had faulty seals. If you want a comparison on comfort, ride and handling, the Suzuki Swift 1.5 has better Noise, Vibration and Harshness suppression as well as better driving pleasure, which I put as one of the two most important criteria in a car (the other is the looks and/or character of the car). I would personally choose the small Suzuki hatchback over this sedan. But this Mazda has above average handling and also a boot. So you can smell less of the durians you may be carrying. And that may be all the reason you need to try a Mazda 2 Sedan before making a decision. Actually you could try a Honda City, Toyota Vios or any other car in and out of the price range. But that is another story altogether.