HATCH IS DEAD.LONG LIVE THE HOT HATCH

The hot hatch is at a crossroads, with the old guard being run out and the new electrified era only just being ushered in. Is there hope left?

-  OLLIE MARRIAGE

Anglesey, early January and the sun's not long up. The point is we can tell. There it is, in the sky, golden fingers of light reaching down in front of Snowdonia. Which is currently living up to its name. We're heading that way tomorrow, but let's not worry about that now, because today our luck is in.

Truth be told, we've all been looking forward to this test since we toddled off to munch mince pies. Hot hatches. They're brilliant. They're also a rapidly dying breed for reasons that I... well... I, um, I just can't work out. We've got 10 cars here, and that's pretty much every hot hatch available today.

A decade back we did a similar grab 'em all hot hatch test. In the end we had to cap it at 20 cars. Several core firms from then no longer build a hot hatch at all. Ten years from now, will anything be left of a class of car which is not only central to the lives of every car nut, but remains every bit as relevant today as it's ever been?

God knows what's going on. No fast Peugeots any more, Ford's commitment fatally wavering, RenaultSport has disappeared altogether, the hot Civic and Yaris built in limited numbers to appease CO, limits, not a halfway house hybrid in sight anywhere here. It's not a rosy picture is it? But let's not drag ourselves down too far.

Because we have 10 cars (seven combustion, three electric), all of them available new today, all of them worth the billing and, in the Alpine A290, a reason to be hopeful. It's electric, but the right size, the right attitude, the right wheel drive. It's faithful to what's gone before, shines a light into the future and, you'll be shocked to learn, has something in common with those rorty Renaults of old.