The Marvelous Hyundai i10

By Puneet - Mon Jan 05, 9:18 pm

Edited byPuneet

Hundai I10- Car of the year The Hyundai i10 goes into a cruise mode when the gear is shifted into a the fifth gear. At 120 kph and with the tacho needle nestling at 4500 rpm, the new compact from Hyundai is pretty keen on consuming the miles any destination. The 2-DIN stereo, for a factory-fitted unit, has pretty good sounds to it.

The Hyundai I10car is clearly an upgrade over the Santro – to call it a 21st century version of the Santro in fact wouldn’t be out of place. Which means it’s safer, built even better and makes life comfortable within, for both the driver as well as all the passengers. And it is more mature when it comes to driving dynamics too.

The instrument console pays tribute to the Santro’s own mushroom-like unit, but the gauges and lights are quite funky. The rest of the dials and switches are of high quality.

The seats are also pretty unique as they ape the ones made by Recaro and other sports seat manufacturers, by making the head restraint an integrated part of the seat. And overall, they are good enough to keep you comfortable over long drives.

One of the striking features of the i10 is the placement of the gear lever. It is almost Japanese car-like, sitting high up in the central console, therefore liberating space between the seats. A feature that is unique to the i10 only.

A major credit should be given to that little 12-valve four-cylinder 1086cc unit for keeping the buzz going on the highway. It sounds just a bit stressed but doesn’t show it even while consistently maintaining high speeds.It develops 65.7 bhp at 5500 rpm and 10.1 kgm at 2800 revs, the engine is familiar to the hundreds and thousands of people who swear by the Santro Xing. Only, in this application, it is a wee bit more powerful.

This engine is one of the best in the business and combined with that slick five-speed gearbox, is an irresistible combination. The ratios are well-spaced out to extract as much driving ability as you can get in fact, the first three gear ratios are identical to that of the Santro Xing.

The tubeless tyres, make the road holding is better than expected from a car of this dimensions. The ride quality on offer again is better than that of its lower priced sibling, though it was a bit on the bouncy side, especially at lower speeds.

It is good-looking, well-built, well-engineered with quality bits, has a proven drive train and is about as spacious as cars in this category can get. Besides this it comes with a host of variants that suit different sizes of pockets, including ones with ABS and airbags and for heaven’s sake, a sunroof too. It is priced between Rs 3.39 lakh and Rs 4.9 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), the i10 has all the ingredients to be a hit.

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