By Angus MacKenzie – MotorTrend
Volkswagen invented the hot hatch, launching the Mk 1 Golf GTI in 1976, and it has honed and refined the formula ever since. Like most Japanese automakers, Honda and Toyota have toyed with the hot hatch genre, but these companies’ enthusiasm for it has waxed and waned over the years, tugged by seemingly eternal internal debates as to whether building affordable fun-to-drive performance cars is a distracting indulgence for a manufacturer of practical, efficient, mainstream vehicles.
