Hatchbacks are cool again! Young drivers see SUVs as cars for old people
SUVs dominate the car market, but editor Paul Barker thinks young people are increasingly turning their attention towards hatchbacks
A recent early viewing of an updated model provoked an interesting chat about the future of different bodystyles. We all know that SUVs have come to dominate the car market recently, with drivers loving their higher driving positions, butch looks – which hint at an active lifestyle that may, or may not, exist – and the perceived safety they offer.
SUVs have plenty of critics, though, and have been an easy target for people who don’t like the idea of a rugged-looking vehicle that never leaves the city, and object to a body that is likely to be heavier, less efficient and more harmful to anything it hits than that of a traditional car.
However, some believe the hatchback is far from dead. The move to crossovers and SUVs has hammered sales of traditional mid-sized five-door cars, to the point where the curtain is coming down later this year on the once-dominant Ford Focus. The Volkswagen Golf, Skoda Octavia, Peugeot 308, Vauxhall Astra and others do still exist, of course, but only the Golf troubled the sharp end of the UK sales chart last year, with eight of the top 10 sellers being SUVs of some sort.
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The product boss I was chatting to mused that, far from hatchback cars being in terminal decline, their lower-slung profile and more compact footprint could be key to their resurgence in the coming years. “Younger people like them because they see SUVs as the cars of their parents, so it could come full circle,” she told me.
In effect, the humble hatch could become cool again, because young drivers want something different to what their uncool parents have! Which is ironic when SUVs killed off family MPVs such as the Ford C-MAX, Citroen C4 Picasso et al by offering a trendier and less boxy alternative that still provided space and practicality.
Hatchbacks are more efficient too, and their smaller bodies use less material to produce, which could also be important considerations for the future’s potentially more eco-conscious buyer. Maybe they could morph into a new type of car that’s slightly taller than before – as we move to electric cars, the batteries have to be housed somewhere – but still lower and less of a family wagon than an SUV.
So maybe the hatchback sector is set for a major turnaround, and in a tale as old as time, a revival will be built on the next generation making sure they don’t turn into their parents!
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