Fast, feral and functional Fastback
Hyundai knows how to make a hot hatch, now it’s gone one better. Richard Bosselman reports.
No point denying nor debating the matter: Traffic Officer Ragg had me bang to rights. He knew it. I knew it. My wife knew it. Even Crash, our dog, knew it.
Lecture, fine . . . lesson learned. There are times and places to ‘‘enjoy’’ a Corolla GT. A race track, yes. Sunday afternoon just short of Waverley? No. Not when the South Taranaki township’s resident cop is on patrol. Memory of the Mitsubishi V3000 black and white U-turning and erupting into a light show arises every time I drive through, most recently with this week’s tester.
Why go there with the i30 N Fastback? As a modern equivalent to the Chris Amonfettled hotshot Toyota I drove weekly and, after that costly encounter, a little more circumspectly, between Whanganui and New Plymouth all those years ago, this five-door spinoff from the original Hyundai hotshot recipe runs eerily close.
The thrill of the package is obvious, but just as firmly linked is the packaging. You know how Hyundai cooked up its original N: Created an i30 hatch as a VW Golf GTi competitor, poaching Albert Biermann, then head of BMW’s M Division, and his crew to ensure the job was done right. A fantastic car.
And now comes a fantastic development. The Fastback won’t have the same kudos, simply because it wasn’t first and hasn’t earned its spurs in the same way the N hatch has, through motorsport success. Which, again, is how it went with the Corolla GT.
Yet, out on the road, the i30 N Fastback is a better daily drive. Sticking true to overall rorty and raucous type yet, on the hyperactivity scale, registering as a more sophisticated weapon. Just as the five-door GT did, back in the day.
Is it just because of the larger, heavier shell? Amon always proposed his own concoct had a more fluid dynamic attitude and gave more concise feedback because of this. I’d suggest Biermann might vouch the same factors work for the Fastback. There’s an enhanced sweetness to the rear-end feel and less of a sensation it hankers to understeer when grip is at a premium. Anyway, it’s more of an nth degree N. Still fast and feral, yet more finessed and, of course, more functional.
The Fastback is as the name suggests – a much more rakish roofline than the regular i30 fivedoor makes it barely tolerable for us tall types. At 1.88 metres’ height, I’m probably right at the limit. It only became comfortable for headroom once I’d slid back the sunroof’s solid inner barrier and dropped the seat to its lowest setting. Even then, I had to slump slightly. Sitting in the back was out of the question. So, for that matter, was expecting to get any usefulness from the rear vision mirror – all you see is the top of the rear window.
Still, it’s a car worthy of a little discomfort because so much is ace. I’m not sure if it looks any better than the hatchback yet, with the same big front grilles and splitter and attractive 19-inch alloys as that car, it certainly delivers an appealing boldness.
Matte-effect paint jobs are part of the package, and though the new Fastback-specific hero hue, Shadow Grey, could come straight from the Audi book (indeed, so could the car’s silhouette), it’s a ripper that really suits, as do all the teensy detailing touches, from a reflector-striped diffuser to a black-accented ducktail spoiler on the lip of the boot.
When Amon and Co did ‘‘my’’ GT, it wasn’t a matter of just bolting in the performance bits, particularly the suspension, created for the hatch; they learned but rarely lifted, instead pretty much redeveloping everything. Same goes here, with all the changes you’d expect to see from expert Germans given carte blanche.
Some of what has occurred here is set to go into the N hatch, but other bits are not interchangeable. The new project offered opportunity for a steering redesign. The front antiroll bar is 0.8mm thinner, damper rates have altered, a revised rear camber arm increases lateral stiffness. Some of these changes are set to transfer to the hatch.
As you’d expect, the Fastback has marginally better aero, but slightly superior weight distribution also tells. You wouldn’t think an additional 12kg over the back axle would account for anything significant, yet it’s enough to move the front/rear weight ratio to 60:40, instead of 61:39. Small things, big stuff. What delighted me as much as anything else was that strut brace across the back of the boot.
All this and it’s a hoot, even when driven well within its limits. A certain small town cop has long retired but others prowl those long south Taranaki straights in his stead.
The ‘‘Surf Highway’’, that sinuous coast-chasing piece between Ha¯ wera and New Plymouth, allowed best taste of the agility through bends and an engine amenable to rising its ample torque or being caned to the redline, revelling in the pops and bangs of the exhaust, watching the white, yellow and red shift lights in the cluster.
Sublime.