Remember that episode of Top Gear when Clarkson drove the Aston Martin Vantage V12 through the Welsh mountains? He said cars like that were the last of the line and it mad his sad.

The Type-R isn’t int he same category, of course. But driving something quite so outrageous and bonkers has made me think we may not be seeing many more hot hatchbacks like this in the future.

As electric, driverless and fuel cell cars slowly take over – and believe me, they will – people will start to look back on motors like the Golf R and Focus ST and the Type-R as crazy transportation machines ‘they’ used to enjoy going crazy in way back in the past.

It’s kind of sa, I know. I can’t see us driving a petrol-powered Type-R in the future. The name will survive but the fact is, we simply won’t have the need for screaming hot hatchbacks in the future.

Sad? Maybe, but we can’t wollow in nostalgia. Time has come to move on…