It’s built in India but the Hyundai i20 has been designed for European buyers. No more westernising Korean model and selling them on the cheap. Hyundai, with its large technical centers in Germany and modern factories in India and the Czech Republic, has benchmarked its European opposition and has been working out how to beat it.
The i10 went a long way to showing us Hyundai’s capabilities, but the i20 is the one that will establish Hyundai as a serious player in Europe’s huge supermini market and replaces its best-selling Getz in Europe. Given its importance, you may be slightly disappointed by its conservative looks, which forego the panache of the new Ford Fiesta and the shape is elegant enough.
Hop into the cabin and you’re greeted by a more contemporary interior than we have seen from Hyundai thus far. True, we tried the top-end Style model which may not come to India but all i20 will come quite generously equipped. Vibrant two-tone seat covers jazz up the interior, and we’ll let Hyundai away with some uneven panel gaps and a few scratches (early cars had been on motor show duty). There’s decent headroom and knee space in the back, and the luggage area is reasonable.
We are allowed to drive only the range-topping 1.4-litre diesel i20, which will come to India only in the distant future. There’s no questioning its fuel efficiency, since it returned more than 17.7kpl on a hard test drive. But this coarse-sounding oil-burner really doesn’t suit what is potentially a nippy little car.
For India, the i20 will initially only be available with the 1.2-litre Kappa petrol which produces 77bhp. We have seen this engine in the i10 and it’s a cracker. So through the 120 maybe heavier than its smaller sibling, don’t expect it to be a slouch.
On the road the i20 is composed and dynamically accomplished, especially compared with the Getz. There’s much less body roll and it steers very neatly, even on tricky wet roads. Beyond the limit, the i20 behave safely with no nasty surprises.
If you’ll excuse the stereotyping, it drives more like a German car-unsurprising, since much of the high-speed and handling testing was done there. But therein lies the i20’s vibration through the cabin at low and high speeds, even on the smooth German roads we used.
It’s not that the i20 crashes over everything; it actually rides over big fidget caused by the suspension’s firmness is likely to compromise comfort on Indian roads, unless Hyundai has tweaked the suspension for Indian conditions.
In all, the i20 moves the game on for Hyundai. It’s a reasonable car and a fair rival for European-branded alternatives. In India, its main rival will be Fabia for now and the Jazz and Grande Punto next year. It’s only after a drive on Indian roads that we can tell you how good the new Hyundai is. We will have to wait till January 2009 when it finally gets launched.