Mobile Reviews

Korean major Hyundai was one of the most upbeat of car makers displaying its wares at Paris and against all expectations genuinely merited this fact of life among visions of downtrends and gloomy sales revolving al around North America and Europe. The Korean chaebol had no less than six spanking new models on display, all of them production oriented and none of them more important to India (and to Europe) as the i20 supermini. Times Zigwheels was the first to have revealed the look of this fresh new large hatch but here it was for the first time in the flesh and looking contemporarily chic and fresh.

The Times of India writes “The third of Hyundai’s i-themed cars (after the i40 and the i10), this is surely the supermini to top them all at least in the Indian context. Packing in an overwhelming modicum of European style with clean chiselled lines and swoopily curved creases that add much needed visual character, it would be galling to just suggest that the i20is only about style and turnout.

The fact that its maker is dovetailing all its efforts in the small car class with European build, specs and dynamics to go with the looks and the packaging is manifest in this tiny package which effectively replaces the Getz supermini in Europe. This however wouldn’t be the case in India, where the duo would reside – happily it seems for HMIL – at both ends of the B-segment.

The i20 will debut in Europe from early next year with a total of seven engine options, three of them being petrol four-pots while the rest are all oil burners. To have such a strong engine offering is further proof of how intense the small car battle has enmeshed manufacturers into making those tiny but critical incremental offerings count as they bid to woo customers in a world steadily shunning large cars.

   
In India though, the i20 will come with a 1.4-litre dohc 16-valve engine delivering 100PS at 5500rpm and a healthy 137Nm of torque at 4200rpm. However the all-aluminium alloy 1248cc Kappa unit as powers the i10 could be the joker in the pack because this unit suitably tuned and geared could be the classic power unit ready to do battle in our door-handle to door-handle traffic. Hyundai is offering just such an engine in Europe and it surely makes the right noises on paper: a low CO2 emission level of just 124g/km and fuel consumption of 19.23 kmpl in the European combined cycle.

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