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Paul Pottinger reckons "you can be supremely confident that The Hyundai i30 will do all that?s reasonably asked of it every day you own it." Photo Gallery
Why can?t you ? some of you at least ? just get over it?
If I had a buck for each conversation I’ve had since picking up the i30 CW that hinged on the dread lines: “Aw, yeah, Hyundai, they made that Excel, didn’t they?” Or “I dunno about Korean cars,” I’d have $17.50. The half dollar’s due to the last git getting thwacked with a rolled-up hard copy of Carsguide before they could finish.
Yes, indeed Hyundai once did churn out a driveaway device of that name. And it shocked complacent Australian-based car makers.
Fat and smug behind the then formidable ramparts of tariffs, they were dismayed to find that not only was someone able to market a $13,990 new car with a five year warranty, but tens of thousands of their previously captive audience were embarrassingly eager to throw over the Falcodores that apologists feebly continue to insist are as dear to Strayans as Skippy. They shoot kangaroos, don’t they?
Meanwhile in the 21st century, people spending their own money have been spending it this year on Hyundais to an unprecedented extent, not only here, but in Europe where the marque’s sales have increased some 25 per cent. The i30 hatch and wagon are at the crest of that wave and those whose heads aren’t stuck either in the past, or somewhere the sun don’t shine, can see why.
Low emissions, low running costs, high quality and highly practical. Not by any means an exhilarating drive, but where (except on the rarefied routes mapped out by car makers for car hacks to indulge themselves on model launches for the edification of impressionable readers) is there any exhilaration in modern Australian driving conditions?
This i30 diesel has sufficient open road performance, underwritten by the full array of active and passive safety measures. You can be supremely confident that it will do all that’s reasonably asked of it every day you own it.
Of course, there are some who are simply incapable of making the kerb-size perception climb to accept cars from that country. Like the proud owner of a new Captiva that a chap from another Korean car company told us of recently. Seems this bloke was preening himself on supporting local car manufacture with his choice of soft roader. Made by Holden, don’t you know. Just wouldn’t, or couldn’t, believe that it’s made in Korea by Daewoo.
Poor fool. I know which Korean import beginning with “H” I’d rather own.
