2017 Hyundai I30 vs Kia Cerato

What's the difference?

Hyundai claims its Ulsan car production plant is the world’s largest. Located 300km south east of South Korea’s capital, Seoul, this monstrous automotive sausage machine spits out a new set of wheels every 10 seconds. Yes, one car every 10 seconds. You can't even make Big Macs that fast.

I first visited the main Ulsan factory in 1988, and a contemporary OH&S rep would have collapsed in shock. Even then, it felt close to medieval; hot, loud, dirty, and frightening. The Excels flying off the end of the line were unsurprisingly ordinary.

But a second visit, in 1995, was a revelation. The clinically clean shop floor was full of quietly efficient robots, producing cars that were already giving the established players something to think about in terms of design and build quality.

Then a third tour (oh yes, I know how to have fun at work), in 2012, revealed a showcase of modern manufacturing technology. Hyundai’s long-held ambition to be the world’s largest and most successful carmaker was clearly in the process of being realised.

Which brings us to the recently released third generation i30, Australian examples of which are built in Ulsan. The new model is already fighting toe-to-toe with the Toyota Corollas, Mazda3s and VW Golfs of this world, setting a course for global domination in the process.

The i30 Premium sits at the top of a five-model range. Does it have what it takes to knock over the big guns, or will Hyundai’s New World Order have to wait?

It is no real secret that the motoring world is guilty of criminal misuse of the English language ("polarising" design, for example, actually means that everyone who has ever seen it hates it, with the possible exception of the person who designed the car) but no single term is so outrageously abused as the word “sport”. 

You can have everything from a humongous Mazda CX-9 to a tiny Toyota Corolla in the alluring-sounding Sport guise, only to find yourself behind the wheel of a car as performance-ready as Clive Palmer wheezing away on a treadmill.

And we can safely add the Kia Cerato Sport sedan to that ever-growing list. While Kia’s fetching small sedan (which might be one of Australia’s best-value new cars) is a lot of very good things, sporty simply ain’t one of them.

Luckily, then, it’s got a few other aces up its sleeve.