Meet the box-fresh 2021 Hyundai i30 N which will arrive here next year…boasts paddleshifts and a bunch of other tweaks.
The Hyundai i30 N is a ripper and quite possibly one of the most underrated hot hatches on the market right now. Doesn’t have the brand recognition of a Civic Type R or Volkswagen Golf GTI but it’s the real deal and one of our favourite cars.
We’d have forgiven Hyundai for leaving the thing alone because it’s already that good but for 2021 they’ve thrown a heap of stuff and plenty of silly names at the thing.
On the outside there aren’t a huge number of changes, there are new LED lights at the front and back, big exhausts pipes and a few other cosmetic tweaks but you’d have to have an old one parked next to the new one to spot them. And we like the fact the i30 N hasn’t aped the changes to the regular i30. Meaning the instrument cluster is still analogue and the hand brake is still mechanical. Yay.
It’s under the skin where Hyundai’s gone to town. For starters, you can now get a wet-type eight-speed dual clutch transmission alongside the six-speed manual. The new forge alloys are a staggering 14.4kg lighter than the old cast alloy wheels. Even the seats are lighter by 2.2kg. The suspension has also been retuned.
The engine’s had a tickle and now makes 206kW up by 4kW and if you add in the Performance Package, which Aussie cars will likely come standard with, then you’ll get an extra 39Nm boosting torque to 392Nm from 1900rpm to 4600rpm. And the 0-100km/h time is down 0.2 seconds to 5.9 seconds.
Okay, time to talk about the DCT… obviously it offers flappy paddles on the steering wheel for manual mode, you can also use the stick shifter. But it’s the N Performance settings the DCT offers that should get a giggle…they are N Grin Shift, N Power Shift and N Track Sense Shift.
N Grin Shift (NGS) releases maximum power of the engine and transmission for 20 seconds. To activate, the driver pushes a button on the steering wheel, and a countdown begins on the cluster showing the remaining seconds for this function.
N Power Shift (NPS) engages when the car accelerates with more than 90% of throttle, thereby mitigating any reduction in torque by using upshifts to deliver maximum power to the wheels.
N Track Sense Shift (NTS) “automatically recognises when the road conditions are optimal for dynamic driving, for example on a racetrack, and activates automatically”. Hyundai reckons it’s like having a racecar driver living in the transmission.
Then there’s the N Grin Control System which is just a silly name for the driving mode selector: Eco, Normal, Sport, N and N Custom. The driving modes adjust the parameters of the engine, the suspension, Electronic Stability Control (ESC), Limited Slip Differential, exhaust sound, steering, and transmission to optimise them for a variety of driving conditions. If you want to get really clever, you can use the N Custom mode, drivers can select from Eco, Normal, Sport and Sport+ settings to adjust individual bits to suit yourself.
Local pricing and final specification, Hyundai said, will be released closer to the local launch.
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