4 modern hatchbacks that really don’t translate well as sedans

When it comes to combining pure driving pleasure with great practicality, it’s difficult to beat a good hatchback. How many other car forms would allow you to go tearing around corners like an irresponsible yahoo one day and help your mom move her dresser the next?

Trouble is, there are people out there who like the badges associated with hatchbacks — Civic, Focus, Swift — but prefer to have conventional boots, for some reason. We’ve never actually met one of them, but they must be out there because the manufacturers keep building them.

A large portion of the time, the transition is perfectly harmless. The Polo sedan, for instance, isn’t anything special but it also doesn’t completely destroy the luster of the hatchback that spawned it (not that Polos are in the habit of setting hearts aflutter). The same’s true for a slew of low to mid-range hatches and sedans from manufacturers around the globe.

Occasionally though, things go horribly horribly awry. What starts out as a world-beater can turn into a complete and utter dog show with just the addition of a conventional boot.

What follows below are some of the worst offenders in this regard. Before we start though, we’d like to say that this doesn’t mean we hate the manufacturers concerned just that we think they did their hatchbacks a massive disservice by turning them into sedans.

1. Honda Civic

In most parts of the world, the Honda Civic is a hatchback. It’s not just any hatch though. When Honda introduced the new shape Civic hatch in 2007, it pretty much ripped apart the rule book for what a hatchback should look like and it’s designs have only gotten bolder in the intervening years.

In North America though, the Civic is a sedan and, well, it’s pretty gosh darn awful. While a boot and a spoiler might work for the Subaru Imprezas and Mitsubishi Evos of this world, doing the same thing to the Civic is just plain cruel. It’s like deliberately scarring the face of an athlete with model good looks. They might still be able to run fast, but you’re always going to feel sorry for them, knowing that they’re no longer the complete package.

The situation is so bad, in fact, that Honda fans in the US set up an online petition, which got thousands of signatures, to bring the next hatch-back version to the country.

2. Fiesta Sedan

If ever there was a car that was meant to be a hatch, it’s the Ford Fiesta. In its natural shape it’s fun, funky and, ever since the launch of the 1.0 litre Ecoboost edition, it’s also been possible to add the words “innovative” and “an absolute pleasure to drive” to the list of terms that best describe it.

Stick a boot on it though and it looks like sedan with a sever case of stunted growth, particularly in the rear. We’re not the only ones who think so either. In fact, its looks have been questioned for a while now. The new(ish) Aston Martin style grill has definitely helped matters in the front, but there’s simply no getting around the fact that if you rock up somewhere in a Fiesta hatch, you’ll probably elicit a few smiles. If you pitch up in a sedan meanwhile, people will probably assume that you’re going to try and sell them and that you’ll do badly, because why else would you be driving a Fiesta Sedan?

3. Suzuki Swift Dzire

If you’re looking for a car that’s taken a sever beating from a big ol’ ugly stick though have a gander at the Suzuki Swift DZire.

Of all the bad hatchback to sedan conversions, this is probably the one that raises my ire most. I really like the conventional swift — to me it’s a far more authentic successor the original Mini than any of the new Minis are. It’s compact, it’s cool and, with enough of them working together, you could probably pull off a decent gold heist.

The Swift DZire on the other hand looks like a complete hatchet job. If it were human, it’d end up on one of those plastic surgery disaster shows.

Fortunately for Suzuki, we can’t pin all the blame for the DZire on it. Well, sort of. You see the Swift DZire is the brainchild of its Indian subsidiary Maruti, which owns around 37% of the Indian car market and approximately zero percent of its styling sensibilities.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that, by all accounts, driving the Swift DZire is far from the worst thing you’ll ever experience…as long as you can ignore the searing looks of pity from everyone around you, we assume.

4. Honda Brio

Built almost exclusively for emerging markets (it originally only launched in India, Thailand and Indonesia before expanding into South Africa in 2012), the Brio is meant to be an affordable, yet fun subcompact hatch that fits in just below the Fit in Honda’s range.

In that shape, it looks like the kind of thing a young student, or the kind of gran who thinks she’s cool because she owns an iPad, might drive.

In Sedan mode however, you’re left wondering a couple of things: a) how can a Sedan be that small and b) which higher up did I manage to piss off badly enough that they gave me this as a rental car?

If you can think of any other cars that deserve to be on this list, please let us know in the comments section below.