Hot hatch showdown – Most kW for your rand

The Toyota GR Yaris gives you the most kW for your rand in the hot hatchback segment – and by a huge margin.

This was a finding by TopAuto when calculating which sporty hatchback gives you the cheapest “rand-per-kW” deal.

To work out this figure, we took the price of each hot hatch and divided it by the number of kW on offer from its engine.

No price ceiling was set in our search, but cars had to provide at least 170kW to be considered.

The cars

Everything from the insane Mercedes-AMG A45 S to the new VW Golf 8 GTI was considered for this list.

While the AMG A45 S provides a mammoth 310kW – putting it comfortably at the top as most powerful – its R1.2-million price tag hurt it in the rand-per-kW calculation.

It, however, was not the most expensive in terms of per-kW pricing on this list – that title went to its sibling, the Mercedes-AMG A35.

At the other end, the Toyota GR Yaris easily claimed top spot at providing the cheapest per-kW pricing.

It was followed by the Honda Civic Type R in second, and the Hyundai i30N in third. The Rally version of the GR Yaris, which includes the “Circuit Pack” then took fourth spot.

The full list is provided below.

Toyota GR Yaris

• Price: R615,700
• Power: 198kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,109

Honda Civic Type R

• Price: R813,100
• Power: 228kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,566

Hyundai i30N

• Price: R724,900
• Power: 202kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,588

Toyota GR Yaris Rally

• Price: R726,300
• Power: 198kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,668

VW Golf 8 GTI

• Price: R669,300
• Power: 180kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,718

Audi S3

• Price: R795,000
• Power: 213kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,732

BMW M135i xDrive

• Price: R865,988
• Power: 225kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,848

Mercedes-AMG A45 S

• Price: R1,196,840
• Power: 310kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,860

Mini John Cooper Works

• Price: R668,124
• Power: 170kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,930

BMW 128ti

• Price: R707,918
• Power: 180kW
• Rand-per-kW: R3,932

Mercedes-AMG A35

• Price: R916,000
• Power: 225kW
• Rand-per-kW: R4,071