The Hot Hatch in North America
Before the Volkswagen Rabbit, the North American version of the Golf, was introduced in GTI form in September 1982 with 90 bhp (67 kW), American manufacturers already offered sporting versions of their own hatchbacks including the 1981 1/2 Dodge Charger 2.2 with 84 bhp (63 kW) and 107 bhp (80 kW) in the 1983 Shelby Charger, and the 1980 Chevrolet Citation X-11 originally with 115 bhp (86 kW). Ford offered the Escort GT and near-identical Mercury Lynx XR3. Chrysler first offered a 2.2 turbo in the Daytona and Laser in 1984 and also offered it in the Lancer/Lebaron GTS and Shadow/Sundance hatchbacks. Chrysler offered the Carroll Shelby prepared turbocharged Dodge Omni GLH in 1985 to 1986 with 146 bhp (109 kW) (which was reputed to stand for "Goes Like Hell"), and in 1986 the 175 bhp (130 kW) intercooled GLHS (Goes Like Hell Somemore). General Motors offered a few sports version of its J-car hatchbacks through 1987, including the V-6 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 and turbocharged Pontiac Sunbird and Buick Skyhawk.
More recent American hot hatches include the 2002 Ford Focus SVT with 170 bhp (127 kW), 2007 Dodge Caliber SRT-4 and 2012 Chevrolet Sonic RS.
Japanese manufacturers launched their own sports compacts to the American market including the Acura Integra, Toyota Corolla FX-GT and Corolla GT-S and the Honda Civic Si, and the Canadian built Toyota Matrix XRS.
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“The Bostonians are really, as a race, far inferior in point of anything beyond mere intellect to any other set upon the continent of North America. They are decidedly the most servile imitators of the English it is possible to conceive.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
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—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“He looked at Senator Hatch and said, “I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries.” And I looked at him and said, “Senator Helms, your singing would make me cry if you sang ‘Rock of Ages’.””
—Carol Moseley-Braun (b. 1947)
“Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of sacralizing person and community.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)