I’ll Be Driving A Hyundai i30 N For 6 Months: What Do You Want To Know?

With ‘our’ RS3 soon making its way back to Audi (sob), its replacement has just turned up. It’s blue, it has 271bhp, and it’s made by Hyundai.

We are of course talking about the i30 N, which blew us away last year. Just how has Hyundai managed to cook up a world-beater, given that the hot i30 is its first proper performance car?

Well, snagging Albert Biermann - former boss of BMW M Division - certainly will have helped, but has Herr Biermann and his team made a car that works as an everyday driver, as well as a back-road and circuit weapon? With the keys to this particular i30 N in our grasp for the next six months, we’ve plenty of opportunity to find out.

We’ve opted for the Performance Pack version, which looks to be the one to go for. It’s £3000 more than the base car, but that’s a small price to pay when you get more power (the standard car makes 247bhp), a Hyundai-developed ’N Corner Carving Differential’, an active exhaust, and larger brakes. Covering the beefier stoppers are 19-inch wheels as opposed to 18-inch items, and they’re wrapped in a bespoke version of Pirelli’s P-Zero tyre that has been developed especially for the i30 N.

The car is finished in Performance Blue, as chosen by you guys in a poll a few months ago. It was the overwhelming favourite colour, in fact, and it looks great in the metal.

Over the next few months, we’ll be pitching the Hyundai into battle with key competitors, finding out what’s good and bad about using it as a daily driver, taking it on long trips and maybe, just maybe, seeing how well CT video chief Alex fits in the boot. You know, for science.

But, as is now customary for Car Throttle’s longtermers, we want you to get involved. Is there a burning question you want answered? Have a suggestion as to what you’d like to see us do with the car? Head to the comments section now!