Hyundai Grand i10

Loved the old,though still on sale, regular-sized Hyundai i10 supermini because when I tested it a few years ago against the Kia Picanto, I thought it boxed clever against its formidable in-house opponent. The Kia was fashionable and well-specced and got all the attention but at the time the Hyundai was cheaper, drove better and had an air of quiet confidence about it. On that reassuring sentiment I was expecting a lot from the all-new i10. Launched at last year’s Frankfurt motor show, it quickly won a coveted Red Dot Design award and seemed poised for a fresh assault on the piquant Picanto. Rather than importing that car, Hyundai South Africa opted for the re-engineered emerging market Indian offering instead. Given its size and price positioning, calling it an i15 or even a (resurrected) Getz would’ve seemed appropriate, however the somewhat worryingly overcompensatory Grand i10 it is. We’ll just call it the Grand from here on.

A meets B. Meet AB
As with the current i20, the Grand is imported from India and clearly a lot of effort and product optimisation went into making the Grand a hatch that blurs the lines between A- and B-segments. The 1.25-litre four pot remains from the i10 and is shared in the cheapest i20 Motion, as is the five speed manual gearbox. The i10 has a puny fuel tank but the Grand gets a grander 43-litre tank so you can theoretically eke out 700km if you’re thrifty enough on the throttle. Similar suspension, wheel
diameter, front disc/rear drum brake combo and motor driven power assisted steering layouts apply for both. From there, the differences become more apparent though.

Not so Grand design
The i10 isn’t exactly the sportiest looking hatch around. In fact it looks a bit like a snake that has swallowed a chest of drawers. But the Grand's styling as a whole appears to be a more palatable coalescing of familiar Hyundai lines and, aside from its stretched wheelbase and different rear passenger door construction, pretty much matches the Red Dot winning Euro i10. Hyundai’s Fluidic Sculpture PR-speak has also been seemingly left on mute for the Grand, and so compared to its attractive, newly facelifted Picanto sister, comes across as a few metres of tidy but inconspicuous Korean hatchback. One unavoidable visual trait though is the shoddy colour matching of metal fender and plastic bumper. Must try harder!

Midriff spread
Like a good Christmas spread, cars tend to gain a few mm in the midriff when they graduate to a new model and the appropriately named Grand is no exception. At 180mm longer than the i10 and a 45mm longer wheelbase, it is not only bigger but also stakes claim to having the largest utility space in its class: 256 litres of boot capacity and 1 202 litres with the rear seats folded down. That compares very well with the i20’s 295-litre boot and even trumps its 1 060 litres of seats-down utility
space. Sure the dash plastics are a little hard on your finger pads but it’s the little things that impress, like the capable audio system, which you’d expect to sound like music piped through a 1950s gramophone, but doesn't. It’s the same story with steering wheel audio controls and the USB, MP3, iPod and Bluetooth capability. The upmarket multifunction trip computer could be from any expensive Hyundai. The only gripe I have is the demister that takes ages to clear the windscreen on a cold morning, but that’s probably not an issue in India where air conditioning is a must-have option, which it certainly has.

Puff, puff past
Much like the philosophy behind the car, Hyundai is keeping things simple with the Grand: one engine choice, two spec variants and either a manual or four-speed automatic. 64 kW and 120 Nm is spicy for its 1.25-litre displacement and bang on what a 1 000 kg compact hatch needs to keep pace with city traffic. Better than that, throttle response in our manual Fluid test unit is pretty sprightly, with a linear power delivery all the way to the redline. Our real world acceleration figure of zero to 100 kph of 11.1sec easily bests the manufacturer’s quoted figure of 12.7sec. Easy pulling power in high gear means you can ignore the Eco Drive shift indicator and leave the Grand humming along in fifth gear all day while returning close to the claimed fuel economy of 5.9ℓ/100km. On our test route we achieved close to the manufacturer’s claim without even trying very hard. A sixth gear could have helped economy and motorway refinement but would've undoubtedly taken you further from the power and torque band, potentially ruining the zippy response. One unsavoury part of the drivetrain was the occasional encounter with a toothy third gear that loved to grind no matter how carefully you engaged it.

Steering like tiller the Hun
In most Hyundais you’ll find a button that adjusts the amount of power assistance applied to the steering. The Grand needs that button to calm the assistance down. Or it at least needs a tiller (the small lever on a forklift’s steering wheel) to better suit its proclivity for sudden direction changes. Small, skinny 14-inch wheels wrapped in low cost 165-wide rubber have a tendency to wander along on the road at speed and are no match for the over assisted power steering. Couple that with some Grand mid-corner roll and traction that is easily broken on the inside wheel while cornering and you have handling that’s not exactly befitting the name. Of course the Grand is no sports car but the i10 was actually a tidy little handler and this pseudo replacement feels less so. At least the eager steering unlocks the Grand’s ability to snaffle the tightest parking spots in the city and pounce on fresh gaps in traffic.

Seeing spots
It’s verdict time. So how grand is the Grand i10 ? Overall, if you were describing the way it looks you might call it the i10 Mediocre. But consider the robust engineering and solid drive (psychotic steering aside) and the title i10 Good might become more fitting. Then ponder the utilitarian packaging that blurs the lines between A- and B-segments and perhaps it stakes claim to the title i10 Great. But it doesn't ever quite attain Grand, in my book. It’s a solid offering to keep the Kia Picanto on its toes but costs a little more and offers a little less sophistication. More than that like the opposite of L’Oréal’s ‘You’re worth it’ ad slogan if I drove a Grand i10 every day I’d be irked knowing that somewhere out there was the Red Dot-winning European Hyundai i10 being all cool and hip and red dotty somewhere.