@MarkM Great minds think alike! My wife’s new car is a Mazda3 Hatchback in “velocity red”, about as bright as you can get. She loves it.
We looked at the Toyota Matrix, which is essentially a Corolla Hatchback, but found the interior tacky. Somewhere I missed reading you wanted a hatchback. We also looked at the Elantra GT, but the design made for very poor visibily to the rear.
Rear visibility is poor in almost every car these days. We don’t find ours unacceptable, but we’re fairly tall. Our Elantra is Volcanic Red, one of the brightest reds I’ve ever seen. I love it and can easily find it in a parking lot of gray, silver, and black cars. I would have liked a red Mazda3 (my sister has one), but our dealer didn’t have one appropriately equipped, but did have one in Dolphin Gray, a greenish/bluish shade was not completely drab, so that and the red Elantra were our finalists. It could have easily gone the other way if the Mazda had been a little cheaper, since it had slightly fewer niceties. Recent Hyundais have all had nice interiors and ample standard equipment.
I had rejected the Matrix for two reasons: a truly ugly dashboard that looked like a boombox spray-painted silver (great minds do think alike) ; and the lack of a cargo cover of any kind. That was just stupid to me. All I can figure is that Toyota marketed the Matrix as a mini-crossover/lifestyle vehicle rather than a mere hatchback. Mountain bikes don’t fit under a cargo cover. I like the Matrix size and styling, but the details left me cold and there were three or four cars I liked better, so it got cut early.
Sad to say but it seems more of Chrysler rubbed off on MB then the other way round. Unless you can afford the costly repairs once a Benz is out of warranty I’d avoid one like the plague. Shop for the usual suspects, Honda, Toyota, Nissan and perhaps Subaru.