Hyundai i20 review

Topping the five-door range is the Premium SE Nav trim which adds luxuries such as heated front seats and steering wheel, front parking sensors, and a panoramic sunroof. Those wanting the a more rugged looking supermini can opt for the i20 Active, which gains all the equipment of an SE-trimmed car plus 17in alloys, lots of plastic body mouldings and a rugged body kit complete with skid plates and wheel arch mouldings. Want a three-door version of the i20, then you are limited to two options - SE or Premium Nav. 

Can the i20 match its on-paper stats in the real world?

On paper the i20 seems promising. The 1.4-litre normally aspirated petrol engine we tested has been newly developed with this car in mind, and although it has to make do without a turbocharger – unlike all its major class rivals – 99bhp in a car that weighs just over a tonne should provide enough poke to easily nip in and out of town traffic.

Start it up, and at tick-over you can barely tell the engine is on at all – testament to the work Hyundai’s engineers have done to improve the sound-deadening, and all part of the new i20’s grown-up appeal. The longer, lower body is a lot wider than before, and in fact it looks and feels more like a car from the class above than a dinky supermini.

The standard six-speed manual gearbox has a slicker action than before, with new multi-cone synchro rings in the first two ratios and a guide plate to make it feel more precise, although it’s still too easy to select third instead of first by mistake, and be left grasping for the right gear as the lights change and the revs die away.

High-strength steels make up a large proportion of the new body shell, and the extra rigidity has definitely made an impact on the new i20’s dynamic character.

Turn hard into a series of corners, and there’s more grip, it resists body roll, and the steering – while rather slow and lacking the precision of say, a Fiesta, has lost much of the wooly, vague dead-zone around the straight-ahead that you got in the previous i20.

It’s still not a driver’s car though. The Fiesta still strikes the best balance between ride and handling in this class, with the others close behind, and the ride in the i20 is probably its weakest area.

Speed bumps and longer undulations are well absorbed, but any sharp ridges or expansion joints expose a seeming lack of suspension travel, sending a big thump into the cabin.

The other problem is power. The petrol versions we drove (the 84bhp 1.2-litre, and this 99bhp 1.4) felt gutless once out on the open road, and introducing any sort of steep incline only highlights the naturally-aspirated motor’s reedy 99lb ft of torque.