The air bag: How pocket rockets became rivals for V8s

Rhere’s a new breed elbowing its way to the fore. They don’t need eight cylinders, two turbos and a propensity to guzzle gas.

Mercedes’s A45 AMG is part of a new breed. Courtesy Mercedes-Benz

As recently as three years ago, the only way to go ballistic (I'm talking a 0-100kph sprint in less than 5 seconds and top speed of 250kph) in something with four doors was to opt for a twin-turbo V8; scorching saloons such as a BMW M5, Mercedes E63 AMG or Porsche Panamera Turbo.

But now there’s a new breed ­elbowing its way to the fore. They don’t need eight cylinders, two turbos and a propensity to guzzle gas. The breed I’m referring to is the pocket rocket.

You might say it’s not an entirely new genre, as hot hatches such as the Volkswagen Golf GTI have been around for almost four decades. However, the seismic shift that’s taken place over the past year or two is that vast advances in engine, transmission and chassis technology have escalated the firepower of some of these pint-size punchers to levels approaching the V8 brigade.

Exhibit A is the VW Golf R tested above, a car that will keep an M5 or E63 AMG honest, and would conceivably outpace them on a narrow, twisty road.

However, this is only the beginning, as VW is readying an even more potent derivative of the tiny tearaway: the Golf R400. As the moniker suggests, it’ll put out 400bhp-plus. What’s remarkable about this is that the R400’s massive grunt is squeezed out from a puny 2.0L engine.

The concept version revealed last year had a claimed 0-100kph of 3.9 seconds and top speed of 280kph, which is starting to verge on Lamborghini Huracán territory. But you don’t have to put up with any compromises in the form of a low-slung two-seater cabin to limbo into and tiny storage compartment. In the R400, you still get four seats and a decent-sized luggage bay.

You might think a brand such as Mercedes-AMG wouldn’t want to tread on the toes of its own V8 monsters by producing a four-cylinder rocket ship, but the three-pointed star has already proven otherwise with the A45 AMG and CLA 45 AMG. Both these compact-sized upstarts boast in excess of 350bhp and can scald their way to 100kph in 4.6 seconds. They’re pretty handy around a racetrack too, aided by their none-too-hefty girth and all-wheel-drive traction.

Audi hasn’t been sitting on its hands either, as the ­Ingolstadt-based carmaker ­recently unleashed the 362bhp RS3 hatchback, which may go on sale in the Middle East in the next year or so, provided it gets the green light. It’s even quicker than the A45 AMG, sprinting to 100kph in 4.3 seconds.

The question that now needs to be asked is whether these tiny titans will render fuel-quaffing V8 behemoths redundant. If you can obtain almost the same performance from something far more frugal and with a more compact footprint – making it easier to park and manoeuvre across narrow lanes (important criteria for European buyers) – then why spend twice the money on an E63 AMG or M5?

I’ve posed this question to top-brass types at Mercedes, BMW and Audi, and they all argue there’s room for both to coexist. Yes, pocket rockets are a smarter and more enviro-friendly way of going fast, but there’s still a healthy demand for brutish V8-powered saloons.

For starters, there’s something about the sound of a V8 that can’t be replicated by a four-­cylinder, no matter how potent the engine. V8s also offer masses of torque that make for effortless reserves of grunt even at low revs.

And for status-conscious buyers, a small hot hatch is something they simply wouldn’t want to be seen in. Their loss. They don’t know what they’re missing.

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