Author: John Mayhead
The UK classic and collector car market is estimated by the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) to include nearly 700,000 people that own 1.54M classic vehicles between them. The variety of those vehicles is massive: from the very earliest veteran cars right through to modern classics of the 1990s or later.
To make sense of this vastness, back in 2018, Hagerty established a set of indices that track the average UK Hagerty Price Guide value of cars selected as representative of a specific group, in this case hot hatchbacks.
The Hot Hatch index includes all the cars you’d expect, from the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Peugeot 205 GTi through to the Renault Clio Williams and Ford Escort XR3i but there are also some rarer models in there, too. The Alfa Romeo 145 Cloverleaf may not have been as powerful as some of the others on the list, but its 2-litre twinspark engine still gave it a 0-60 of 8 seconds. The Vauxhall Chevette HS is tracked, too, as an example of a powerful, homologation special with a design that influenced later cars of the genre.
In the early days, the Hot Hatch Index struggled, reaching the lowest of all Hagerty’s UK indices in mid-2019 when the average price was down 7.5 percent from the previous year, but since then, it has performed well and is now the top index, up 20 percent from its start. Much of this rise took place between 2019 and 2020, when Hagerty saw nearly every sector of the market rise thanks to a lockdown boom. This happened to coincide with Generation X – typically those more likely to have grown up in the 1980s and ’90s at the hot hatch heyday- reaching peak earning capacity. So, when the prices of cars in other areas dropped back after the pandemic, hot hatch values didn’t correct so much and quickly continued upwards. In the past 12 months, values have risen again, with the average price rising by 5 percent year-on-year.
There are other reasons why the values of hot hatchbacks have been resilient in a time of general financial uncertainty. Firstly, they offer a lot of fun for the money: with an average price of just over £20,000, they are still attainable by many. Also, there are thriving parts and restoration specialists around the country that specialise in these models, and active owners clubs. Most importantly, these cars are fun to drive: many were derived from rally variants and they were designed to be small, fast and agile, perfect for British roads.
The outlook is good for these, and for later hot hatches and remember: the Hagerty Price Guide and indices are updated quarterly.
We’ve shared our take on the hot hatch market, but what would you like to see next? Let us know in the comments below.
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