Hot hatches at the Paris motor show 2012 Looks like a Mexican stand of super hot hatches next year, with Volkswagen's new Golf GTI, Renault's Renaultsport Clio IV and Peugeot's 208 GTi all standing out in the hot sun, trigger fingers twitching. Peugeot UK is the main driving force behind the new GTI - it's even commissioned a batch of specially tweaked cars from Peugeot's special projects department, with spiffy upholstery, huge amounts of kit and breathed on suspension. There'll be 29 of them to mark 29 years since the original Peugeot 205 GTi and they'll cost £20,445 compared with the standard GTI cost of £18,995. VW is doing its own special £900 Performance Pack for the GTI which arrives next summer. The engine is the storming 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol which delivers 217bhp (227bhp with the Performance Pack). It looks pretty purposeful, but there's some weird thing going on with the red pin-striping which runs right through the headlamps. "I'm trying to avoid using the world Marmite about them," said a spokesman, "perhaps I should say they are polarising, though people might think that's something to do with the optics." Over at Renaultsport there must be something of a flurry as the company prepares its hot Clio to do battle having ditched the old 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine and gone instead for 197bhp 1.6-litre turbo power with a six-speed dual-clutch transmission. Renault has previously had a phenomenal reputation in this class as builder of some of the most driver focussed hot hatches ever built. So there's a reputation on the line when these three meet on some lonely, erm... test track.