New Hyundai i30 spawns ‘family’ of cars

HYUNDAI’S just-revealed second-generation i30 hatch will spawn a “family of cars” in the coming years, including a swoopy four-door coupe-style variant.

The South Korean car-maker uncovered its all-new C-segment contender overnight and confirmed in its press release that the next-gen model “is more than just one model”.

In the release Hyundai says the i30 will become “a family of unique products united by a timeless and balanced design coherent for every body type”.

“The family offers the right car for everyone – for the ones looking for elegance or the ones looking for exhilaration,” it says.

While Hyundai did not elaborate further on the family, Autocar has published a picture of a slide from a presentation of the new hatch by Hyundai Motor Group president and chief design officer Peter Schreyer in Frankfurt that reveals the outlines of three distinct body styles.

One of the outlines appears to be the regular five-door hatch variant revealed this week and another has the shape of a fastback-coupe style model with a high-set sloping liftback tail end.

This could point to a future four-door coupe variant in the vein of BMW’s 4 Series Gran Coupe or Audi’s A5 Sportback.

If the production model ends up being a four-door coupe-style variant it would be a unique proposition in the mainstream small car segment, with hatchbacks the body style favoured by most car-makers.

Whether Hyundai positions a model such as this a little higher than the standard i30 hatch variants remains to be seen.

The third silhouette shows a wagon body style that will be offered in Europe but its chances for the Australian market are unclear.

Hyundai sold the Czech-built i30 wagon in Australia from early 2013 but it was discontinued in June this year as it had become too expensive to import the little load-lugger from Europe.

Hyundai Motor Company Australia public relations general manager Bill Thomas told GoAuto that it was not a priority to bring a wagon variant back into the local line-up, but that it also was not ruled out.

“It’s not completely off the table,” he said. “It’s just a matter of economies and making sure it makes business sense. I don’t think it is necessarily completely ruled out but at the moment it is not part of the plans.”

It is unclear whether HMCA would take the four-door-coupe version for the Australian market, but one model it is keen on is the forthcoming high-performance i30 N.

The new i30 will be the first Hyundai model to carry the N badge but it will not be the last, with the company planning to roll it out to other as-yet unidentified models.

Details on the front-drive i30 N are yet to be confirmed but we do know it will be powered by a version of the company’s turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine and will pump out more than 190kW and at least 300Nm and feature an electronically controlled mechanical differential and dual-clutch automatic transmission, with a manual option also on the cards.

The standard version of the i30 will launch Down Under in the second quarter of next year.