It has been a couple of years since Hyundai’s i30N hot hatch burst onto the scene and shook the competition. So far, it has championed the N brand and paved the way for more performance oriented Hyundais. It has certainly a done a lot for the brand and it was about time that the hardworking hatch got an update.
That manual gearbox has been fantastic but it was also one of the limiting factors of this car and Hyundai have addressed that with this updated model.
The biggest change is of course the addition of an 8 speed dual clutch gearbox as an alternative to the 6 speed manual. You also get optional lightweight seats and new set of 19 inch alloy wheels among other things!
Hyundai say that the car is more performance orientated than ever before and they want to give their buyers a more extensive range of features to choose from.
The design has been updated to fit with Hyundai’s range. The lights have LEDs all around now and the front grille has been replaced with a more modern one. The rear has been tweaked a little bit as well but the changes are not as obvious as those on the front.
In terms of the performance, the 2 litre turbo now packs even more power than before! It belts out 206kW and 392Nm with the performance pack. The N will now hit 100 in 5.7 seconds, a figure that is 0.2 seconds faster than the outgoing model.
It also gets Hyundai’s SmartSense safety features but I won’t cover that in depth because the power and design updates are way cooler.
Thanks for reading! Words by Matthew Dsouza, pictures sourced from Hyundai Press worldwide.
