WE DRIVE: Hyundai i10 Supermini

March 10, 2008

Specifications: Hyundai i10 Supermini
Price: From £6495 (Classic) to £7595 (Style).
(From about R106 000 to R124 000)
Engine: 1086cc, four cylinders, 12 valves, 49kW at 5500rpm, 99Nm at 2800rpm.
Transmission: Five-speed gearbox (four-speed auto optional), front-wheel drive.
Performance: 152km/h, 0-100km/h in 15.6sec, five litres/100km official average.







Some people just must have a new car – even if that means making themselves look ridiculous. After all, who could honestly have preferred a brand-new Daewoo Nexia to a two-year-old Volkswagen Golf when that brand broke cover in the UK?

The mindset was beautifully encapsulated in a Which? magazine survey on cars' good and bad points. Among the points singled out for praise by Daewoo owners was 'starting'. Expectations clearly weren't high.

If you buy a new car for the price of a better used one, the new model won't be much good – right? Nowadays, not necessarily. After all Ford, a proper automaker, has been selling its about-to-be-replaced Ka for less than R101 000 in some deals. Three respectably badged small cars (the Citroën C1, Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo) are also ultra-cheap; meanwhile the former embarrassment brands have been reinventing themselves as proper players.

We drove the recently refreshed Kia Picanto in February 2008 and found the little Korean car to be smart-looking, properly made, decent to drive and good value at under R78 000 for the cheapest Hyundai is reckoned to be slightly upmarket from Kia. Nothing second-rate here. With the Picanto, though, came the intriguing prospect of future warfare between Kia and Hyundai, the brand of the corporation that owns it.

Hyundai is reckoned to be slightly upmarket from Kia, with smoother driving, sophisticated instrument graphics and grown-up styling. The i30 hatchback illustrates the point – slightly more expensive than the Kia C'eed and, overall, a nicer car. And now there's a little i10, sharing some undeniable underskin features with the Picanto. The warfare part goes like this. The i10 is priced barely higher than the Picanto, yet it's roomier, more upmarket inside and has more equipment, including air-conditioning. It's also a new model, so already it's looking the more attractive purchase.

The i10 starts at £6495. Given its goodies, how can it be so cheap? Because it's made in India.

A proper supermini

At first, when I saw a pre-production i10 on its debut at the Bologna auto show, it seemed the cheap production costs might be matched by cheap production values – the abundance of hard plastics in the cabin made more obvious by a nastily shiny finish. But now I have driven proper production cars, and the unnatural shine has gone.

This is a proper supermini, not the near-family-size cars that many so-called superminis have become. It has a 1.1-litre engine – a suitable size for a small car – and its 49kW should be enough for most people's needs, if not wants. It's also a car that gently chides people for their vanity.

The top, £7595 Style model has 15" alloy rims with 175/50-section tyres; the middle Comfort and entry-level Classic i10s have 14" rims (alloy and steel respectively) wearing 165/60 tyres.

Why would you want the Style anyway? Apart from the flashier rims, you get an electric sunroof, heatable front seats, a rear roof spoiler and a few bits of metal-look interior trim. Sounds like the Style is a bit of a pointless purchase, for who really wants a sunroof nowadays?

All the goodies

Besides, the Classic already has front electric windows, bumpers painted to match the rest of the body, tinted windows and various other goodies, including the same stereo and CD player with iPod connection found in the posher versions.

The only useful feature it lacks is remote-controlled central locking.

The Classic it is, then, and actually I like its starker, crisper-looking seat trim. And those smaller wheels let the i10 ride more smoothly over bumps than the Style's vanity fitments.

The engine is no powerhouse and it gets vocal if worked very hard, but much of the time it simply propels the i10 with enough interest not make you crave more urge. Meanwhile, the gear change is smooth and easy and the same applies to the electric power steering.

A year with the Azera reminded us that there are two sides to value. The bright side offers features unexpected from a car in this class, like rain-sensing wipers, automatic headlights and a rear window shade. On the dark side we find misaligned panels, material choices of questionable quality and poor stereo performance.

Nevertheless, the Azera's noteworthy performance and high feature content ultimately outweighed the evidence we found of the car's relatively inexpensive nature. It offers an affordable touch of luxury to the average four-door family sedan, not to mention a strong engine and comfortable ride. Twelve months of flawless mechanical performance also influenced our willingness to forgive its cosmetic flaws.

The 2007 Hyundai Azera made a positive impression on us, yet we're still not willing to think of it as a premium car. It's attractive and certainly as reliable as a Hyundai Sonata, but it doesn't yet have a character to call its own.

Italy's annual motor show at Bologna has hosted the world premiere of the all-new Hyundai i10 city car.

The demand for this type of model in Italy is massive, with small vehicles taking an amazing 60 percent of the market!

And here in Britain sales of the i10 are expected to be double that of its predecessor, the Amica.

The i10, says Hyundai, is "designed to be fun-to-drive, affordable and practical while offering quality and equipment that no other rival can offer at the price." Uniquely in the class, air conditioning is standard in all versions.

All i10 models will be powered by a 67PS, 1.1-litre petrol engine mated to either a manual or automatic gearbox. The gearshift is mounted on the centre console to improve ergonomics and free up the space between the driver and passenger seat.

Manual versions will be capable of an official average fuel consumption of around 60mpg and produce 119g/km of CO2, qualifying for the VED 'tax disc' rate of £35 a year and exemption from the new London Congestion Charge proposals due to take effect in February.

Like all Hyundai cars, the i10 will also be covered by a five year, unlimited mileage warranty to provide peace of mind motoring for half a decade.

On sale in UK on 1st March 2008. Prices are expected to start at less than £6,500

So they gave me a Kia Rondo, which I think I would really like IF it didn't handle like a more extreme version of an unmodded Elantra (steering is too touchy, and WAY too much body lean!)  Good acceleration though, and it's got a shiftronic which is okay to play with when I'm bored.