Subaru WRX
Three letters and a lot of history. The Subaru WRX may be getting further and further removed from its ‘rally heritage’ (it hasn’t raced in multiple road car generations) but the Japanese small sedan still offers big performance.
Subaru has spun it off from its Impreza roots (even though there is still an obvious connection between the two) and expanded the range to include multiple variants and even a Sportswagon. The only downside is there’s no longer a rally-bred STI hero model, so instead you have to make do with the WRX tS Sport.
And while you might expect a performance small sedan to be a niche model, the WRX was actually very popular in 2024, cracking the top 100 new sales.
Kia K4
If there’s one brand that has believed in the small car, even more than Toyota and its Corolla and Yaris duo, it’s Kia. The South Korean car maker stayed strong in the small car space, at one point offering the Picanto, Rio and Cerato as rivals disappeared one by one.
In 2025 Kia has recommitted to the small car market with the all-new and very stylish K4. It’s replacing the Cerato, with the K4 sedan already here and the K4 hatch due mid-year, but is bigger and more premium to try and expand its appeal. Not that it’s suddenly outrageously expensive, with the entry-level model priced from just $30,590 for the sedan.
Hyundai i30
Unfortunately the i30 hatch is not long for this market, with plans to drop it from the local range in the not-too-distant future as a combination of legislation, exchange rates and falling demand combine. But while it’s still here we should celebrate it, because the i30 hatch was a game-changer for Hyundai.
European designed, the i30 took the fight to the big guns, like the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus in terms of look and driving dynamics before trumping them on price and value. Then came the i30 N, the brand’s first hot hatch, and really it’s first proper performance car after some false starts with models like Scoupe and Tiburon.
It was more than just a fast hot hatch, it was fun, with playful handling and ‘snap, crackle, pop’ from the exhaust. Thankfully the i30 Sedan N will carry on this fun-loving new tradition from Hyundai for the foreseeable future – and long may it continue.
Mazda3
For the longest time a ‘small car’ was a ‘cheap car’, not just in terms of price but in terms of quality, design and even dynamics. Then in the early 2010s, the latest Mazda3 elevated all of those elements and became Australia’s best-selling car, knocking the Holden Commodore off its perch.
Mazda then evolved that ethos for the latest arrival, pushing the design and quality even further, beyond mainstream and into a ‘semi-premium’ state that made BMW and Mercedes-Benz buyers have second thoughts.
So while the current model doesn’t sell in the same record-breaking numbers as the previous models, it does demonstrate that a ‘small car’ doesn’t need to feel like, or be, a ‘cheap car’ to be successful.
Honda Civic
Honda was clearly paying attention to what Mazda did, because the latest generation Civic ditches the simple, basic, utilitarian outlook of previous generations for a more sophisticated look and feel.
Now hybrid-only, with the exception of the range-topping Type R, the Civic isn’t cheap (priced from $49,990 drive-away) but you’re not buying a small car, you’re getting a comfortable, engaging and economical quality vehicle, that just happens to have a smaller footprint than an SUV.
Then there’s the Type R, which may be the most potent and focused hot hatch ever built. It costs an obscene sum of money for a small car (from $74,100) but for those who want a small performance car and are agnostic on how it generates its speed, then it’s hard to deny.
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