Affordable Collecting - Part 5: The 70s and 80s Hot Hatch Dream comes true

There's a lot to enjoy here: hot hatches aren't just cars, they're the mechanical translation of our youthful passions. If we dreamed of them when we saw them on the street or admired them plastered on posters in our bedrooms, with maternal rebukes, today we can have them. Perfect gateways to a different kind of collecting, not speculative, but emotional. A collecting that preserves memories, scents, voices. And that allows those born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to be young again, behind the wheel of what once could only be desired.

This first part explores the beginning of the sporty hot hatch phenomenon. Europe discovers that practicality can be fast, and that being young means not having to choose between comfort and adrenaline. Here are the 10 most interesting hot hatches from the late 1970s to early 1990s, as always with a budget suitable for those looking to enter the world of collecting, set under €25,000.