Light Brigade

Ditch the back seats and dial to 11. Two of the fiercest hot hatches in the world butt heads, but which is more fun?

- James Taylor

YES, YES, OKAY. LET’S get the price out of the way first. There is a $11,000 difference between these two, which is a fair slug of cash by any measure. But more than any other hot hatch pairing in the world today, these are kindred spirits. Both the new $63,900 Mini John Cooper Works GP and the $74,990 Renault Megane RS Trophy-R have binned their back seats to save weight, waved goodbye to ride comfort with ruthlessly focused suspension set-ups, and somehow squeezed 220kW+ through their front wheels only. They’ve also squeezed their production run down to a limited series, in the Megane’s case to 500 cars worldwide (and just 20 for Australia) and a less exclusive 3000 for the Mini (65 for this great Southern land). And both are once-in-a-lifecycle cars – this is the third Mini GP in 14 years (officially, it’s called the GP3), and the third fully committed Megane; the first was 2008’s plastic-windowed R26R, the second 2014’s 275 Trophy-R. The Renault holds the Nürburgring Nordschleife lap record for front-wheel-drive production cars at 7min 40.1sec, and the Mini GP3 too has lapped it in under eight minutes. That’s quicker than a BMW M2. So if you want the most hardcore hot hatch on sale today, one that’s closer to a sports car than a shopping car, these are the two hottest in the world right now. Which offers the hardest hit?