In the late 1980s, if you really wanted to buy a definitive hot hatch, you would cut a check to Volkswagen for its Golf GTI. Here, you’d get a car with perfectly balanced performance as well as practicality and all-important prestige, and you’d find it difficult to top that at any of the other manufacturers. However, the Japanese had other ideas, and one of its OEMs would try to rewrite the hot hatchback rules in a quest for glory. So, Mazda came out with its 323 GTX that had its roots in the no-nonsense sport of rallying while introducing some mechanical innovation to the sector.
