I love the idea of touring car championships. Sure Formula 1 may be the crucible of motor sport, but it isn’t as emotionally involving because most of us have no concept of what it might mean to be Jensen Button. Whereas we all have a pretty good idea of what it means to thrash a BMW M3 around a race track crowded with other sport sedans. In the olden days, touring car championship enthusiasts were good, salt-of-the-earth lads with a bit of cash to blow on new differentials, suspension and tyres. It was all very home-made and real.

What I love most about touring car championships is that they germinated the idea of the basic pocket rocket in the public mind. Think of the glory days of British touring car championships – would they have been the same without the plucky Mark II Mini bouncing about the track, holding its own against magnificent Jaguars and brutal American Ford Mustangs? Would our idea of a fun hatchback be the same if it wasn’t for touring car championships?

Okay, I need to whisper a bit here. Get in close so the others don’t hear. My favourite type of hatch back isn’t the dynamite-loaded Ford Focus, or the seriously serious Golf 5 or 6. And I have a serious problem with Mini falling under the stewardship of the chaps from Bavaria. A very serious problem.

I’m getting distracted. My favourite type of hatchback is actually the basic, underpowered city slicker, instead of your wound up track-thrasher. I’m far more at home inside a Ford Figo than I am inside a Ford Focus RS. My favourite hatchback isn’t the Golf 5 GT, or the Ford Focus ST – it’s the Suzuki Swift. Don’t think too long about that. It’ll only confuse you. Especially if you consider that on the other end of the scale, I like my supercars huge, loud and grotesque. You know, like the Mercedes McLaren SLR or the Chevy Camaro SS.

Despite my proclivity for 1.4 engines and a break horsepower that rarely goes over 90, I’ve generally been very happy with the more powerful hatchbacks that we’ve had. Volkswagen has not disappointed – besides being driven almost exclusively by Durban Indian douchebags in Markham’s clothing and gelled hair, there is little wrong with the Golf 5 GTI. The Ford Focus ST is worthy of the praises of bards and minstrels. Even the pig-ugly and impractical Renault Megane R26R has strong selling points.

The problem is that everybody else has noticed how much fun hot hatchbacks have been.

This brings us very nicely to the Audi A1 1.4 TFSI S-line S-tronic. Let’s get straight to it, the car looks like something that a hen-pecked underling in The Devil Wears Prada would drive around in, desperately looking for a Starbucks chai latte for the boss. It has the same self-serious, unironic attitude about it as the sort of woman who has the same haircut as Lady Gaga a la The Fame. It strikes me as being a car that would have an eating disorder. It is joyless. It is too serious. It has sucked the air right out of jolly little hatchbacks. Mr. Bean wouldn’t have worked at all if he had driven about in an A1 1.4 TFSI S-line S-tronic.

And I’m sorry, but it looks a bit stupid. The now-famous Audi shape doesn’t work on such a short car. It looks seriously imbalanced – a little too tall for its wheelbase, like if you thrashed it a little too vigorously around that hairy bend on 6th street in Parkhurst after you’ve passed the Jolly Roger on your way towards Victory Park; it would topple over onto its side. The S3 is what I imagine Mila Kunis would look like if she was made of bits of metal. I almost wet myself the other day when an Audi RS5 with its rear spoiler up roared past me. Beautiful cars, all. The A1 looks like a Mr. Price handbag. What in twelve types of pig’s arse went wrong when they were designing the A1? This is why I would walk straight past one of these and get myself a Fiat 500 Abarth. Now there is a car that is brimming with character and fun.

I’m told that there’s an S1 on its way. That won’t make a smidgen of a difference.

To answer the question posited in the title: not quite. I don’t think that all is lost. Despite the hot hatch industry becoming a little too successful for its own good – so that it started attracting yuppies and their girlfriends – I think that there are still many gobsmackingly good hot hatches out there.

The Citroen DS3 is utterly, utterly beautiful. I’m told it goes like a frightened rat. Then of course there’s the upcoming Ferrari FF. If you didn’t get all flushed and dampened when you looked at that, you need immediate medical assistance.

There you go then. The hot hatchback isn’t being killed off by accountants who buy Ikea furniture. No. The choice is only expanding.

Whew.