I haven't had a hot hatch for years - not since I sold my last RST sometime around 2004/2005. Since then I've had a string of shitty cheap cars before buying less shitty less cheap Lexus almost 9 years ago. Love it, best car I've ever owned. It's not fast, it's not fuel efficient and it's not cheap to tax. But I still love it.

However, it is coming towards the end of it's life - still (probably) got a couple years left in it, but last year it needed a whole bunch of stuff doing (mainly small bits; rad, thermostat, leaking power steering pipe, wheel bearing, exhaust part, washer jets packed up, boot spring mech broke, etc) and despite me spending maintaining pounds rather than modifying quids, it's only gonna end up needing more as we go on.

So, that got me looking at cars. My first thought was a B8 Audi S4, the 3L supercharged V6 one. You can pick these up, mileage depending, from between £12-£15k up to about £20k for 2012-2015 cars. Tax is cheaper than my Lexus, despite having over double the performance, but is still over £300 a year, the MPG isn't actually that much better than the Lexus and I figured parts won't be cheap for it. So that got me looking at A3 saloons. The 8V shape is lovely, nicer than the A4 IMO, and they do a 1.4L turbo with 150bhp, and 50-60mpg for £20 or £30 a year road tax. Get the S-Line model for the trim level, 7-sp auto box, mag suspension, blah blah. Similar pricing to the S4, but newer car (2014/16) and much less running costs. But then I noticed there's an S3 - same car, same toys and trim, but a 300bhp 2L turbo that does 0-60 in under 5 seconds and is £150 a year tax (once it's out of that 5 year additional tax period, which the 2017 ones I'm looking at would be by the time I'm ready to buy). But there's the rub - massive performance increase, but an MPG drop and tax increase (not to mention another £10k buying price increase).

My sensible head says buy the 1.4, and enjoy less expensive fuel/tax bills (which was the plan as I wanted to plough all my spare cash into mortgage overpayments) but the little devil on my shoulder says I've worked long enough to get a good paying job, I should have a quick car again, and it might be the last time I ever buy one as in ten years we'll all likely be in EV's for daily drivers anyway

Of course it's all academic at the moment as I'm a year or more away from buying something new (unless the Lexus pegs it in the mean time, and then I'd likely buy a shitbox runabout to tide me over).