Odd numbers (three-door hatchback, five-door hatchback) mean two or four doors, plus an extra ‘door’ which is the tailgate, and a luggage area that’s part of the passenger compartment. The majority of city cars, superminis, and family cars fit into this category – a Dacia Spring is a five-door hatchback, as is a Volkswagen Golf (since VW dropped the three-door version).

Estates are an extension of this, literally and figuratively – these days, estates tend to have a “five-door” layout. “Four-door coupes” though are a little trickier. Most have the typical saloon layout (four doors and a separate boot) just with a more steeply raked roofline (such as a Mercedes CLS) but plenty of cars that are technically five-door hatchbacks (like the Audi A5 Sportback or Volkswagen Arteon) are often described as four-door coupes by their manufacturers. We’ll always make clear which layout the car has in our reviews.

We’ve covered regular coupes in their own section above, but a special mention for the old Hyundai Veloster, which had an asymmetric door layout, with one on the driver’s side and two on the passenger side, so could be variously described as a three or four-door hatch or coupe, depending on your interpretation. The 2007-2014 MINI Clubman meanwhile also had one door on one side and two on the other (with a rear-hinged rear door for the latter), but also two tailgate doors, like a van – so was it a three, four, or five-door estate? Some cars defy categorisation…

Light commercial vehicles

So we arrive at the true workhorses of the automotive world. The term commercial vehicles refers to all goods vehicles but ‘light commercial vehicles’ are those that you can drive on a normal car licence – although the very largest ones require a C1 licence if you passed your test after January 1997. 

Small van

This category has changed in parallel with the car market. Once the small van market was teeming with supermini-based models, or tall, upright vans like the Bedford Rascal. Today when we say small van, we’re referring to models like the Citroen Berlingo, Renault Kangoo, Ford Transit Courier, or car-based models like the Toyota Corolla Courier or even Land Rover Defender Hardtop. Some of these certainly aren’t physically small, but their load space and payload tends to be much less than that of vans in the next class up, while for the most part (maybe not that Land Rover) running costs should be lower too.