For many people of a certain generation, the ‘hot hatch’ is an object of reverence. Some of us grew up with different icons. Older folk will remember the glories of the Ford Escort Cosworth and the original Golf GTI. Younger folk might be more taken by the Hyundai Ioniq 5N or the Mercedes AMG A45. I grew up somewhere in the middle, and my princes went by the name of the Honda Civic Type R and the Audi RS3.

There was always something tempting about the car that was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A cute little hatchback with 300bhp and a sub-7-second 0-62mph time. While it might be fair to argue that the Honda, with its aggressive styling and association with tracksuit-wearing terrorisers of McDonald's carparks, was hardly ever subtle, the Audi certainly fit the mould. There were hints at the

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