Top Gear Drives the Hell Out of the Hyundai i20 N, Makes Some Bold Claims About It

The Hyundai i30 N has already proved itself as a worthy alternative to the likes of the popular Volkswagen Golf GTI, Renault Megane RS, Honda Civic Type R, and Ford Focus ST. It’s a properly-built nimble front-wheel drive compact, which can put a huge smile on the driver’s face whenever they floor it.

As for the newcomer, it is slightly smaller, so it has the Ford Fiesta ST and Volkswagen Polo GTI in its sights. Named the i20 N, it builds on the normal subcompact model, though it does feature a lot of upgrades.

Some of them are in your face, like the enhanced styling, typical red accents, bigger wheels, N-branded brakes, big wing at the back, and the usual N logos. The others, however, well, let’s just say that you’ll need to jump behind the wheel to spot them, as they include a dedicated suspension that can put the spine through the top of your skull on a bumpy road, and there’s no way around it, and a punchy engine under the hood.

The latter is a 1.6-liter four-cylinder unit, with turbocharging, which works in concert with a six-speed manual transmission and mechanical limited-slip differential. The front-wheel drive subcompact hot hatch has 201 hp (204 ps / 150 kW) and 203 lb-ft (275 Nm) of torque bouncing off the walls, and with the launch control function, it can go from rest to 62 mph (0-100 kph) in 6.7 seconds, Hyundai claims, and up to 143 mph (230 kph).

But is it actually that quick in the real world? The answer came from Top Gear, who gave a journo a lab coat, and put him in the driver’s seat of the i20 N for a proper review that covers pretty much all basics, including the acceleration time, which took three tenths of a second less. As for the quarter-mile time, you are looking at 14.6 seconds.

That is definitely not bad at all for a small car, packing a small engine, which was built to be a proper fun machine that does not break the bank. As a result, it shouldn’t be considered neither a track tool nor a drag racer in disguise, but a small practical hatchback that most people can learn to love.

Deemed as “one of the star cars of 2021” in the video review that you are about to watch down below, the i20 N is definitely an interesting alternative in its class, and the reviewer went as far as claiming that it might even be better than its larger sibling, the i30 N. That is a very bold claim nonetheless, but it wasn’t the only one, as you are about to see for yourselves.

Before scrolling down and hitting the play button, we will remind you that Hyundai isn’t selling the i20 N in the United States, but you could get the bigger 2022 Veloster N, which is basically a re-bodied version of the i30 N, with its 275 hp 2.0-liter four-pot, from $32,500.

In the United Kingdom, where this review took place, it has a recommended retail price of £25,220 (equal to $34,220), £8,720 ($11,830) more than the base i20, and in Germany, it can be ordered from €24,990 ($28,350), albeit without dealer markups, and before options, of course.