In this battle of car brands which begin with ‘H’, only one hot hatchback can be victorious, unless it’s a draw, which is very unlikely. Interestingly, too, both these cars are manuals. We headed out to the Saldanha air field outside Cape Town, a working air field where you occasionally have to scatter off the runway because a plane needs to land.

It’s very exciting. In a fetching shade of blue, the Hyundai i30N is the brand’s first N car to reach South Africa and our race-ace Ashley Oldfield thinks very highly of this front-wheel-drive fiery five-door.

In an angry shade of grey, the Honda Type R is arguably the king of hot-hatchery; it is devastatingly quick around a track. But how would it fair on the quarter mile…