Diesel rules, but petrol still pleases

For the 2007 award, specificity was taken to such an extent that we picked not just a single model but one contingent on the inclusion of a particular optional extra.

So it was that Hyundai's i30 SX CRDi (that's diesel to you and me) with the $1790 Protectz enhanced safety pack (that'd be curtain airbags and ESP) was cast in myth and legend, to be forever spoken of in whispered awe.

None of which is to decry the i30 in its gasoline guises per se. We've spent the past little while in two: the SLX automatic ($25,490) and the stripper SX manual ($18,990).

To the former, we'd simply say the extra spend entailed by the latter is worth it. To both, we'd say the diesel remains the best bet — an option made more potentially attractive with the imminent arrival of an automatic.

On the face of it, the base-model i30 represents sound value — but not if you're going to spend anything approaching Hyundai's peerless five-year warranty period aboard.

If it's already grim and grey in there, then nothing's more depressing than a small, blank rectangle of plastic on the instrument panel — especially when, in an upper-spec car, one of those spaces would be occupied by a button marked “ESP.”

Although it's the omission of both this and curtain airbags that make the un-optioned SX a non-starter in our book (this stuff saves lives, you know), the absence of the comfort embellishments that come with the SLX make for a pretty austere space to spend time.

And someone with hot mitts left salty stains on the plastic tiller.

Priced from $5K more for the manual-transmission version (the automatic adds another two grand,) the SLX line gets curtain airbags, leather trim and aluminium accents, as well as audio and cruise controls mounted on the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

The road wheels gain 16-inch rubber that offers a marked improvement in grip over the petulantly squealy 15s of the SX.

The four-speed auto of our SLX sometimes hunted for the appropriate ratio behind the two-litre petrol four, a modest 105kW/186Nm device that, next to the 255Nm diesel, has much to be modest about.

The only SLX options are the Protectz pack ($990 in this instance) and metallic paint for $300. The topline SR auto ($28,490) cops these and a few fiddly bits besides. But, then, we're into Mazda SP23 money.

Better rubber combines with fairly sophisticated suspension (MacPherson struts, multi-link rear) to appreciably lift the SLX's handling, but the steering is still too remote for our money.

But the i30 has taken Hyundai so far from lingering perceptions of Excel ordinariness that it seems churlish to expect any more.

Thing is, though, you can have an i30 with more — one with a diesel engine.