Hyundai, with its twin Kia, has managed to make its mark in the European market after years of persevering. Now that they have attained recognition, the next step is to make their presence felt. The Hyundai i30 hatchback based RN30 concept seems to be built to announce that Hyundai has arrived in Europe.
The Hyundai i30 seems to be inspired by the i20-based World Rally Championship car from the Hyundai stable. Painted in a scintillating shade of sky blue, the RN30 exudes overt aggression with the mean LED headlamps, the gaping front grille and the yellow square LED DRLs. The bumper gets slits on the side for brake cooling and a lower lip to keep underbody drag in check. The scissor doors give it the exclusive touch while the roof fuses into the ultra-wide C-pillars to make the massive rear wing.
The RN30 has been built to challenge superhot hatches like the Mercedes A45 AMG, the VW Golf GTi and the Honda Civic Type R. It is said to have a 2.0-litre straight four cylinder petrol engine, a heavily turbocharged one at that generating 374bhp of power and about 400Nm of torque. It runs four-wheel drive just like the WRC car and gets a dual-clutch paddle-shifted automatic gearbox doing the duties.
There is certainly no compromise in the cabin though, with full-bred racing buckets, four-point seatbelts and a frog-leg handbrake. The steering gets a built in screen to display information along with a tablet like display behind it for more. If this is a precursor of a real world hot hatch, the few horses might have to be traded for reliability and a few of those technologies given a boot to make it affordable.
