hatchback

HOT STUFF: The 1.8-litre Seat Leon Cupra is a super quality, safe-to-drive 180bhp,; 142mph sensation among the handful of hot hatch-backs now available in Britain

The last thing I saw when I turned off the road, was a dear sweet old couple in a red hatch-back mouthing the word "loser" at me.

IF you're cruising round in your modded hatch-back with the 'phat-boy' exhaust and a shadow, roughly the size of a house, bears down on you - better move over because the new Mercedes Vito wants to come through, writes PAUL MYLES.

What I particularly like about the Tipo is that for a smaller hatch-back it has more height than its rivals.

We're giving away, to one lucky reader next week, the keys to a brand new Peugeot 106 XN three-door hatch-back car.

A three-door hatch-back, it was powered by a range of 750, 900 and 1000cc engines delivering around 45 bhp.

turbo ie three-door hatch-back sells for pounds 2,750 (50,000 miles), with the later Cat-fitted model at pounds 4,500 for a '93 reg (20,000 miles).

But it doesn't do interesting saloons or hatch-backs. I can't imagine anyone going into a dealer-ship and actually handing over readies for one.

Truckies seem hell-bent on squeezing you out, combative boy racers in dodgy hatch-backs and with dubious ability carve you up and give you questionable signs.

THAT flashing smile, her downy neck or even just the way she moves can make the difference between mild interest and a burning passion, and few hatch-backs make more effort to woo the buyer than the new Honda Civic, writes PAUL MYLES.

The once-great German firm should concentrate on getting its flawed superminis and small hatch-backs right before it wastes time, effort and money mixing it with the big boys in the luxury 4X4 market.

Whatever happened to the yellow triangles that clubbable smuggoes used to hang in the back of their Volvo hatch-backs to request we didn't smash into cars owned by the very fertile?