Hyundai i30 Fastback N
Hyundai’s i30 Fastback N delivers track-spec performance on the street, and the fastback body is a head-turner.
But can you live day-to-day with this car?
Click here for the i30 N Hatch review >>
Can you live with this car day-to-day, in the land of financial constraint where you can’t afford a fun car and a day-to-day commuter car?
If you’re tempted by a Volkswagen Golf GTi, considering the BMW M2 or even get tickled by the V8 Ford Mustang, detach from fantasy momentarily and consider the new kid on the block.
Let’s start at the front wheels where you’ll peel insanely grippy Pirelli P-Zeros away from the wheel arches, and find a track-spec tyre and brake endurance package like few cars you’ve ever driven.
Also at the front end is Hyundai’s E-diff, a computer-control limited-slip differential which you’ll never see, but absolutely feel. It changes the character of the cornering process, taking in all the dynamic data inputs you and the car make, and makes intelligent decisions on how much to clamp the driveshaft incipiently spinning. It allows you to get on the gas so much sooner and harder than you could with an open diff in performance driving. It’s properly Jedi.
The track-friendly warranty means you can explore the limits generally, in the controlled environment of a racetrack, where there’s nothing hard to hit if you make some mistake.
Unlike most other brands, Hyundai extends the warranty on the i30 N to cover you for track days as long as it’s not actual motorsport racing other cars or against a clock. You’re covered even if you fit super-sticky slick tyres.
In the engine bay, there’s a 202kW/353Nm four-cylinder punch in the face, which becomes a 378Nm roundhouse kick in the face on overboost thanks to twin-scroll turbocharging. All that poke is yours from just 1750-4200RPM on 95RON petrol.
Compare it with a (1665kg) 2000 VX Commodore SS, celebrated for 225kW from 5.7 litres, which becomes 139.8 W/kg. With half the combustion chambers, the Fastback gives you 136.7 W/kg but weighs just 1509kg.
If you want to compare apples with apples: Mustang has 339kW.
You’ll never stop grinning at the unnecessary but thoroughly delightful crackling of the Bi-modal exhaust, which turns that country back road into a wannabe tarmac rally stage.
Open the boot and you’ll be fixated on the coolness of having a proper rear strut brace. Actually there’s bespoke reinforcement all over this car; it all just says Hyundai went the extra mile (which was an extra 500 R&D laps of the Nurburgring).
Rev matching at the push of a steering wheel-mounted button makes the perfect throttle blip at the optimum revs for the most Stig-like gear shifts you’ve ever seen.
N-custom mode (engine, dampers, steering weight, e-LSD, ESC, exhaust sound) 1944 permutations… Equally hilariously, there’s an ‘eco’ mode. You won’t be needing that.
Design & Disposition
It’s not very often a carmaker tacks on a totally different design to the back half of an existing car and makes it dead sexy.
The Fastback is a great look for i30, it operates in stealth mode in traffic, except to performance car nuts, without looking ridiculous like a Honda Civic Type R.
Say you bought a BMW M2, and you round up some halfwit in a Golf GTI. He can always say, “It’s a superior car”.
If you round up GTI wanker in a Fastback N, which you will because after three laps that GTI’s brakes will be fading away (and yours won’t), he’s got nothing.
Same thing for that bogan tool in a Mustang. It’s raining; you carve him up on the outside, in a friggin’ Hyundai, you check your rear vision: Next thing you see is tail lights. They’ve got nothing, and you’ve got Obi-Wan’s e-diff, with rev-matching, more rubber on the road, and a better power-to-weight ratio.
They bought the wrong car.
Ownership
Can you live with this car on a daily basis?
Because driving’s not all superhuman rev-matching back to third at 4000rpm and making like Neo up against Agent Smith exiting a corner.
In the land of financial constraint where you can’t afford a fun car and a day-to-day commuter car, can you live with i30 Fastback N every day?
If dropping the kids at school really is like going Kung Fu on Hugo Weaving, maybe you should be having a good, hard look at yourself in front of a mirror. \
You may want that hardcore performance at times, but if you’re going to live with it, it needs to loosen up in traffic.
The Fastback N is certainly imperfect. The interior’s a bit ‘plain’, because the big bucks got spent on performance, so if you want a premium interior in a sporty car, this is not that car.
It’s manual only, which might get old in traffic, depending on your daily commute. It’s a sweet manual when you’re driving like you mean it, but it’s a pain in the arse in traffic, like every other manual transmission on earth. Apparently a dual clutch transmission is in development, with no word yet on availability timeline.
Fastback’s rear vision is a bit like looking through a porthole because when you look in the central rear vision mirror it’s mainly showing you the car’s roof lining. It’s fine, an inevitable compromise with the Fastback shape, but if you like bigger rear vision, buy the hatch.
Performance
Hyundai recalibrated the suspension tune for launching the Fastback. And the net result is greater than the sum of the incremental changes.
It’s more domesticated now, but in N-sport mode, it’s still perfect for track days, and performance driving generally. In N-custom mode, there’s almost 2000 permutations of settings you can select.
This new tune came through on the hatch as well as the Fastback - and essentially they’re exactly the same to drive. The Fastback is 11 kilos heavier than the hatch but you’d have to be pretty special to notice a tangible difference on the track.
Damper settings and steering weight are both customisable aspects of the N-custom drive mode setting. You can go from ‘dropping kids at school’ mode to ‘Green Hell’ mode with the press of a button.
Engine bay: not nearly enough bling. Just saying. It’s purely cosmetic - but they could have tried harder there, cosmetically.
The primary driver ergonomics are excellent, including the seat and steering wheel, pedal placement, even the shift lights.
The bang for your buck is unbeatable. If you can drive, this is a sensational car. If you want to learn to drive - really drive - this car is ideal. It’ll adapt up with you, as your skillset improves. And it’s a turnkey solution - track ready out of the box.
You can also have a proper spare tyre. A space saver is standard, but a genuine wheel with TPMS sensor and proper performance tyre is a genuine accessory which only lifts the cargo bay floor about an inch.
Cost & Conclusion
The Fastback is notionally $1500 more than the hatch, the Luxury pack is $3000 which offers heated steering wheel and front seats, proximity key, rain-sensing wipers, and leather.
Another two grand gives you the panoramic sunroof; and if you tick every box it’s about $50k in traffic here in Australia. That makes it still cheaper than the Golf GTI you’re about to murder with extreme pre-meditation at the next track day.
I’ve never seen a carmaker have a first crack at performance and get it this right.
