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Yeah it's really hard to understate the dominance of hatchbacks among young car drivers, which is partly driven by their relatively better fuel consumption, insurance grouping, price etc. than bigger cars of course, but still, perhaps downstream of those factors there is a general cultural association of hatchbacks as young peoples' cars. Not exclusively, older people do drive hatchbacks often too, but virtually every young person drives a hatchback. Saloons/sedans are - at least in my impression, maybe other Brits would disagree - pretty deeply uncool for a young person and associated with balding professionals. Not necessarily a reason not to get one, if you don't care what other people think (and I have no idea how young you are), and it's not like it matters that much, but if you do something to be aware of. Also bear in mind that among some elements of the middle classes 'looking' aspirational is not necessarily a good thing, though again this doesn't really matter and no-one will care about your car much anyway.
Sedans just aren't that popular full stop, as they get outcompeted as family cars by crossovers, estates and SUVs which are more practical, and without either young people or families it doesn't leave a huge market.
Fair (though I've got to imagine that even if the test is harder driving in Britain is much easier than in India), but bear in mind that if you do the test in Britain in an automatic you will not be allowed to drive a manual under any circumstances, which might be annoying if you ever need to drive a rental car/van/friend's car/whatever.
Overall, if you are looking for an automatic in the £10k range, you will be able to get a considerably lower mileage, more economical, newer car if you do go for a hatchback. For that price you can get a virtually new 2023 Corsa at the moment and you would struggle to get any low-mileage sedan that wasn't old or uneconomical.
Oh driving is waaaay easier in the UK. When I have relatives who either learned to drive there or became accustomed to it return to India, they have conniptions at the sight of our roads, let alone the other vehicles. Hell, even as a pedestrian, I once got into an involuntary standoff with a car at an unmarked crossing. I was waiting for him to cross first, and it took me a good minute to realize he was polite enough to wait for me to go first. We were both smiling and shaking our heads at each other when I did figure that out. I'm used to running madly across the road in the middle of traffic. Not that bad, we all do it, and nobody I know has died yet.
And I'll be traveling down sedate suburbs and if I'm unlucky, some lovely rural countryside (I'm a city guy, sadly), so I don't expect to be engaging in illegal street racing.
@2rafa thoughts? Because I'd be pissed off if it's true, a little. Because I personally prefer the aesthetics of sedans and saloons, though I obviously care at least a bit what others think.
Not that I think estate cars or crossovers look bad, I strongly dislike SUVs for how impractical they are, and a hatchback just screams broke motherfucker to me here, even if it's different elsewhere. I guess I'll get over my hangups if I have to. Thanks!
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