Hyundai Is Brewing A Cheaper, Hot Hatch-Inspired i30 N-Line

Hyundai is planning an i30 N-Line this year, with much of the i30 N’s muscle-bound looks in tandem with cheaper insurance and ownership costs.

It will get 18-inch wheels wrapped in super-grippy Michelin Pilot Sport 4s, a sporty body kit closely related to that of the brilliant hot hatchback we’re running as a long-termer, and red accents (because +20bhp). Underneath will be a slightly lower, tweaked version of the i30’s chassis while the ordinary seats recently spotted in a test car suggest the N-Line will be much more like the standard i30 on the inside.

Despite that, reports suggest the N-Line will have been tested at the Nurburgring to make sure it’s more engaging than the average biffabout in this class of car. The Ford Focus has traditionally been the target benchmark, its ST-Line trim grade offering much the same relative deal as Hyundai is exploring with the N-Line.

With an all-new Focus having just been released, it’ll be interesting to see how the two rate against each other. The ST-Line with the 123bhp Ecoboost petrol engine is the best-selling Focus variant in the UK, so the warm-hatch niche offers Hyundai significant money-making potential.

We’d expect the N-Line to use several engines, starting with its own turbocharged 1.0-litre ‘Kappa’ unit, good for 118bhp, and potentially reaching as high as the 173bhp 1.6-litre unit from the Gamma family.

As for headline costs, around £21,000 would make sense versus the similarly-priced Focus ST-Line. Whether or not Hyundai engages with cheap, subsidised finance deals to the same extent as Ford remains to be seen.

Source: Autocar