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68 | FireFlyz
Car
Review
Withthehatchbacksegmentgettinghot, ZacharyHowarmsuptoanewcontender, the
Hyundai i30Sport.
E
xpectedly
or unexpect-
edly, the Hyundai i30
hatchback gained fame
at the 2011 Frankfurt Mo-
tor Show where it was
famously caught on video
being manhandled by
Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and
gang. In the video, he looked somewhat
displeased while getting touchy-feely
with the car, measuring blind spots and
muttering things like “There’s no rattle…
We can’t do it… Why can they do it?”,
“Interior is luxurious”, “Can’t see the
wipers” to his nervous entourage.
That video revealed that a well-
established major carmaker (i.e. VW)
pays heed to the littlest of details even
from the minnows and that a minnow
like Hyundai has leapt forward enough
in terms of construction quality to attract
the attention of the big boys.
LOOKS
This is the second generation i30 to be
borne out of Hyundai’s Technical Center in
Germany. Even though it shares underpin-
nings with the Elantra sedan, it’s largely a
car designed by Europeans for Europeans.
Its front looks unmistakeably like the
Elantra with the swept back headlights
and the trademark hexagonal grille. Only
a side-by-side comparison will reveal the
subtle differences between the two.
The i30 is supposed to give popular
hatchbacks like the VW Golf, Ford Focus
and Peugeot 308 a run for their money,
and, in that sense, Hyundai seems to have
Playing With the Big Boys
hit a homerun with a bold, eye-catching
exterior that makes some of its rivals look
rather bland in comparison. In profile
view, the i30 looks sleek and ready to
pounce. For a hatch that looks this loud,
the Sport trim comes with a bodykit that’s
surprisinglymuted; most noticeable being
the pseudo twin exhaust.