Hyundai i30 can be good Korea choice

THE Hyundai i30 Tourer estate is a great choice if you want to impress somebody with how far Korean cars have come.

And their i30 Tourer might be all the vehicle you’ll ever need.

With most small estate cars, the designers are given the unenviable brief of working with the existing “hard points” of the hatchback model, merely grafting a conservatory on to the back and hoping it looks halfway cohesive.

The i30 Tourer isn’t like that, delivering a very neat piece of styling, with a sharply rising beltline giving it a poised, aggressive look.

There’s plenty of luggage space, too, offering 602-litres with the rear seats in position (74 litres more than before). Fold down the 60:40split rear seats and this expands to a hefty 1,650-litres.

There can’t be too many cars that can disguise their load lugging abilities quite as well as the i30 Estate.

The engines on offer are the same as those in the hatch variant — two petrol units and one diesel.

If you’re fueling from the green pump, you’ll be choosing between a couple of advanced T-GDI units, a three cylinder 1.0-litre 120PS variant and a four cylinder 140PS 1.4litre derivative, which can be ordered either with a six-speed manual gearbox or 7-speed DCT auto transmission.

The same transmission choices are also offered to diesel folk, who get the 1.6-litre CRDi 110PS powerplant carried over from the previous generation line-up.

The 1.0 T-GDI engine comes from the smaller i20 — here it develops 170Nm of torque.

Newer, though, is the 1.4 T-GDI variant. This unit puts out 242Nm of torque and works well with the dual-clutch transmission where it offers the user two drive modes — “normal” and “sport”.

In sport mode, you get a different shift pattern that holds gears longer before shifting, plus the steering provides a sporty feel and the throttle response is adapted.

Hyundai says it’s put a lot more work into ride and handling this time around, developing this car in Europe at venues like the famous Nurburgring Nordschliefe.

The completely reworked chassis should certainly make this generation model feel more responsive, aided by more accurate electric power steering that is supposed to be 10% more direct than before.

All variants get Autonomous Emergency Braking as standard along with Driver Attention Alert, Smart Cruise Control, Blind Spot Detector. Expect prices to start at around £18,000.