After pitting the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR against the Honda Civic Type R and Hyundai i30 N, the peeps at Cars.co.za have uploaded the third video in the hot hatchback shootout series. This time around, South Korea takes on Japan to see which country makes the faster car over 440 yards.
In the blue corner, the i30 N is a value-oriented hatch that was developed with one purpose in mind. To bring the driver excitement, that is, and Hyundai developed it with the help of a man you may have heard about. Albert Biermann is his name, and before this gig, he headed the BMW M division.
Like the Honda Civic Type R, the South Korea interloper relies on a short-throw manual with six forward ratios for maximum driving pleasure. The 2021 model year – which marks the mid-cycle refresh of the i30 N – introduces a DCT with three driving modes: Grin Shift, Power Shift, and Track Sense Shift.
The Japanese contender soldiers on with a six-speed manual as the only transmission available, and Honda won’t make any changes in 2021 because there’s an all-new Civic on the horizon. Be that as it may, the Type R has the upper hand in terms of sucks-squeeze-bang-blow thanks to 320 PS and 400 Nm of torque (315 horsepower and 295 pound-feet) from a 2.0-liter turbo.
Hyundai relies on a similar engine but it’s tuned to crank out 275 PS and 378 Nm (271 horsepower and 279 pound-feet) with the optional performance package. Oh, and by the way, the Korean hatch is heavier at 1,504 kilograms versus 1,395 for the Japanese rival (3,316 compared to 3,075 pounds).
Turning our attention to the quarter-mile drag race, the Hyundai got off the line surprisingly good. It’s hard to tell if the driver’s skills had something to do with this performance, but there’s no denying the i30 N clawed into the asphalt better than the Honda. Still, the Civic Type R had the last laugh.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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