We've thrashed the i30 N on a WRC Special Stage

... and it was nothing like we thought it would be.

​There was no dirt (well, there was dirt, but we weren't allowed on it). There were no jumps. It was the wrong way around. It wasn't a production car. 

There were no diehard rally fans at the edge of the roadway. No officials. Nothing of what we expected when we were told we'd be driving on a Special Stage of the final round of the World Rally Championship in Coffs Harbour.

Was this a classic 'bait and switch' manoeuvre by Hyundai?

There were still plenty of corners, hard braking points and trees (a few hundred metres away), because the stage was set at the Raleigh International Raceway - a go kart track outside Coffs that used to have a waterpark and still has confectionary vending machines.

There were still plenty of corners, hard braking points and trees.

As we all know, the new N sub-brand for Hyundai - apart from being curiously alphabetically close to the M arm of BMW, and being run by the former head of the M division, Albert Biermann - is all about faster Hyundais, and the i30 N is their first foray because, you know, that's where you need to play if you're a mainstream car maker.

Being a rival to the likes of the Volkswagen Golf GTI and R, the Honda Civic Type R, Ford Focus ST and RS, and some of the other more expensive hot hatches in the segment, the i30 N is a car that needs to excite, one that needs to be good, and fun, and fast, and all the things we like about hot hatches.

And it is.

It's no secret that the i30N is up against some stiff competition.

The most exciting one is the i30 N Performance version, which packs a bunch of extra kit over the base model like bigger 19-inch wheels with model-specific Pirelli P-Zero tyres, a electronically controlled mechanical limited slip differential, bigger brakes and other stuff - including a more poppy-crackly exhaust system. It looks faster outside with its red stripy bits, but inside it's a bit plain - I think the budget might have been gobbled up on making it great to drive.

The i30 N Performance's engine has more grunt numbers, too, with the 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo punching out 202kW of power and 378Nm of torque on overboost. There's no overboost function in the regular i30 N, which has 184kW/353Nm. Neither has the option of a dual-clutch auto transmission yet, but there will be such a 'box later on. And it's front-wheel drive, meaning the rally link is even more tenuous than we thought. But hey, the headline got you to click, right?

For now, the i30N is manual-only.

Okay, so what about how it drives? It's not as much of a handful as some other front-drive hot hatches, without that tendency to feel like it wants to fling you off the track when you lift off mid-corner. There is heaps of grip available. One former Australian Rally driver told me "it feels like it'd be hard to crash", which was reassuring.

The diff helps you claw out of corners easily, and while the tyres were almost fried, the customised N driving mode helped eliminate some of the understeer. The setting for our sesh was: N engine response and steering weight, but with a slightly softer damper tune to help soften the front a little and lessen the likelihood the nose would push on in corners. It was properly rapid through twisty bits.

The engine is a corker, too - great punch through the mid-range, and a willingness to find the redline, too. The exhaust is the real star, proving you should never be afraid of flatulence: it pops, crackles, burbles and straight-out farts on the overrun. Maybe not to the same pretentious level of a Mercedes-AMG A45, but that's a good thing.

The lesser i30 N, which I won't call the non-Performance (for obvious reasons), felt like it could be an absolute bargain if Hyundai gets the price under $40K. 

The 18-inch wheels with Michelins still had good grip and the steering remained excellent - a sort of best-of setup that takes the weighting of a VW Golf GTI and puts it in bed with the twitchy nature of the Ford Focus ST. It's really fun.

Like, I mean, reaalllllly fun. In the days before I came to Coffs Harbour for this drive, I'd spent a weekend in the Civic Type R and done a review on the Golf GTI Performance Edition 1, and while I didn't test either of those cars on the track, I can't help but think that the Hyundai made me smile more than either of those other hot hatches did.

Even if the test drive wasn't what I thought it would be - it would have been even more fun over some jumps and through some mud - the car was exactly what I knew it would be: pretty bloody great.

Are you looking forward to the Hyundai i30 N as much as Matt is? Let us know in the comments section below.