My wife hates the Hyundai i30N Sedan. That’s a good start

The Hyundai i30 N is fast, loud and looks like a young hoon’s fantasy car. So let me embrace my inner boy-racer for a while.

Lots of fun: Hyundai i30 N Sedan

My long-suffering wife very nearly pursued a career as a journalist – no doubt fate’s way of attempting to get us together sooner – but then, foolishly, made the same vow of poverty by marrying one.

Her unfortunate choice of one particular husband (so far) has meant she is forced to have rapid relationships with many cars; she probably drives at least 50 different vehicles a year, which has led to her becoming almost unwillingly opinionated about them.

Recently, she somehow managed to drive the new Hyundai i30 N Sedan before I did, so I thought I’d save some time by asking her what it was like. She launched into a rant so colourful I wish I had written it, pointing out that it was noisy, noisome and looked like someone had given a regular i30 to a teenage boy and let him go hog-wild, with no restrictions of taste or style whatsoever. She finished her spray (rather cruelly, I thought) with: “So, you’ll love it.”

Her intemperate ranting did raise a point I’ve often pondered, though. When car companies design what are often referred to as “boy racers”, which Peter Pan-like punters do they think will buy them?

From the front

The i30 N Sedan is an interesting case because it can truly be called a performance bargain, starting as it does at $49,000, and yet that’s still obviously a little rich for the kind of pubescent being who would look at its lairy design – with its slightly silly wings, its oversized exhausts, and side scallops that look like a small child has attacked it with a trowel – and think, “If I hadn’t spent all of my money on Air Jordans, I might have been able to afford a model car that looks like this.”

So perhaps such cars are aimed, instead, at men-children who have at least some money yet know, deep down, they can’t really pull off Air Jordans any more. Men (and a few women, too – they make up roughly 15 per cent of i30 N buyers, apparently) who want to reward themselves by buying exactly the kind of car they lusted after when they were pimple-riddled, P-plated adolescents.

Fortunately, the i30 N Sedan doesn’t just look and sound fast, it also has a surprising amount of get-up-and-growl, with a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine making 206kW and 392Nm. I must admit I felt a bit embarrassed, or perhaps chastened, driving it at first, and found its ride quality and ability to behave like a normal, family sized vehicle in its softer settings the biggest surprise.

Eventually, though, I was tempted by its Sport mode and, for the umpteenth time, my wife was right – I loved it. I would have loved it even more if I’d had the no-cost-option six-speed manual version, but at least the eight-speed dual-clutch transmission meant that my steering wheel bore a bold and intriguing button marked NGS. As a Mad Max fan I was hoping it stood for Nitrous Gurning Sensation, although I also liked Nuclear Grunting Sandwich, but Hyundai went with something even sillier, N Grin Shift.

... and the back

Press it and you get a graphically exciting 20-second countdown on your digital cluster, the whole Hyundai tenses itself like it’s about to leap of a cliff and makes big raspberry noises. During this countdown (which is uncannily like the one you’ll find on any modern, exciting Porsche’s steering wheel) you are able to extract an extra 7kW from the engine, and the gear shifts become violent. It’s very amusing, and appealed greatly to the teen buried somewhere within me, still waiting for a Ghostbusters game to load on his Commodore 64. There’s a load of N for Nerdier stuff on offer when you press the big (and unfortunately slightly cheap-feeling) blue plastic buttons attached to the wheel, which offer hugely unnecessary amounts of personalisation and variability for everything from the exhaust to the suspension, with steering and performance in between.

While all the sound and fury from the engine and those giant pipes at the rear are good for annoying strangers, the truly impressive part of the i30 N is how well it drives. This car is seriously stiff – it even has what looks like a climbing gym for a possum in the boot, but is actually a strut brace – and makes you feel connected to the road like a proper sports car. It’s also quite quick, with its 0 to 100km/h time of 5.3 seconds made to feel faster by all the theatrical huffing and blowing going on.

The steering is well calibrated and talkative, the brakes are powerful, and overall it provides the kind of driving involvement and excitement that normally costs at least twice as much. It would, however, be a dangerous weapon in the hands of teenage drivers, who sadly miss out on the part of the brain useful for risk assessment until they are older, so it’s a good thing they can’t afford one.

You can, of course, feel the difference between this Hyundai and an expensive car, in the harder plastics and thinner, less chunk-sounding doors, but we boy racers care not for such fineries. Sure, $49K is a lot more than a pinball machine, but as a way of rewarding your inner child, the Hyundai i30 N Sedan is money well spent.

Hyundai i30N Sedan

ENGINE: 2.0-litre turbocharged (206kW/392Nm)

FUEL ECONOMY: 8.2 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic, front-wheel drive

PRICE: $49,000

STARS: 4 out of 5