Sport Compact Cars - Market Trends

Market Trends

Sport compacts remain one of the largest segments of the performance car market in Europe and Japan, and is seeing a resurgence in North America after declining sales in the 1990s.

Japanese manufacturers such as Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Subaru have continued to release new generations of modestly priced sport compacts, such as the Honda Civic Si, Mazdaspeed3, and the Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V. General Motors and other American companies has responded with the Saturn Ion Red Line, the Pontiac G5 GT, and the Chevrolet Cobalt SS. Dodge also offers the Caliber SRT-4, high-performance versions of their respective models.

European manufacturers have long offered multiple high-performance compacts in Europe and many of these are imported to North America. These are called hot hatches or warm hatches depending on engine power as they are available as hatchbacks. They include the VW Golf GTI (which was first announced in 1975), Volkswagen R32 and Mini Cooper.

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