This Is Guernsey

By Pete Burnard

Small cars make a lot of sense in the island.

But…

Suppose you need to carry a couple of big teenagers who will, of course, want to plug in an MP3 player so you can all enjoy their music through the in-car entertainment.

Or maybe there’s a gran in the family who doesn’t find getting in and out as easy as she used to.

Then perhaps you’ve acquired a bit of a taste for big-car features:

Remote central locking, proper internal sliding electric sunroof, air conditioning, heated front seats, electric windows all round, that sort of thing.

Well now you can have it all and in a car with a price tag as modest as its compact dimensions.

The i10 has all the above – and more.

The four-model range that replaces the Amica offers three trim levels, Classic, Comfort and Style, and, importantly for local sales, there’s the option of proper four-speed automatic on the Comfort model.

Basic it isn’t. Even the £5,495 entry-level Classic has air conditioning, four airbags, front electric windows, electric power steering, central locking and a CD player with that MP3 compatibility.

Step up to Comfort specification to get more goodies such as rear electric windows, remote-control central locking and 14-inch alloy wheels.

Step out in Style and you get to flaunt 15-inch alloy wheels, heated front seats and even an electric sunroof and all for less than some rival ranges begin at.

The five-year unlimited mileage warranty has, of course, been standard across the Hyundai range for a while, hence my not mentioning it until now.

First out of the Barras Car Centre’s showroom for me was a top-of-the range Style.

It shares its bigger i30 sibling’s nose treatment so it’s not bad looking as tall, small hatches go.

And it’s a car I felt instantly at home in.

The indicator stalk has – at long last – moved onto the left side of the steering column like everyone else’s.

The gear lever falls instantly to hand protruding, as it does, from the lower centre fascia and there’s more knee and foot room than in many bigger models.

The dining-chair driving position is fine and there can’t be many of us left who have sat thus in either a tall hatch or a people carrier. If you haven’t, don’t worry, it’s the seating position in which we computer-screen slaves spend our working lives.

This particular Style was fresh off the ferry – it had been delayed as Condor shipped food first after disruptions caused by the recent storms – and there was a fairly strong odour of plastic solvent about the interior.

Until, that was, I opened the tilting/sliding glass sunroof and let the fresh air in to dispel it.

Sliding within the roof, it does impinge on headroom but there is more than most people will ever need so, as Norman Lamont might have said, the loss of a bit of it is a price worth paying.

Fulfilling the city-car role is not difficult. A seat or two, tightish turning circle, small size and low-enough emissions to duck under Ken Livingstone’s congestion-charge barrier and it’s pretty much job done.

But since many islanders’ small cars are their only cars, many of us need a few more talents.

We need a vehicle that will:

• take adult passengers – no worry, the i10 will take four of me – the office and the world might have a problem with the concept, but that’s another story – and admission is through four, full-size doors.
• carry all ’Er in Drawers’ shopping bargains – bootspace is respectable and you can always drop the back seat.
• get a bit of a move on when needed – at higher revs, the 1.1 motor might not be the most refined in the business, but it is both more powerful and less thirsty than it was in the Amica and the smooth, light clutch and slick five-speed gearbox help get the most out of it.
• corner fast without falling over – the ride that is firmish around Town promises decent cornering and when the school run deteriorates into the usual last-minute panic, the i10 delivers. The electric power steering offers plenty of feel and if you hustle it, the little Hyundai turns into corners with the precision of something much sportier and body roll is minimal;
• travel all the way up to relatives in Scotland/down to the mobile home in France – like most rival cars, you might have to work it a bit on the motorway, but UK testers confirm that it will do the job.
• and stop when you get there – with disc brakes all round, on a featherweight, no problem.

So not only does the i10 Style tick all the handful of boxes that city cars need to, it ticks most that proper cars should, too.

While most have grown, this is still a supermini in name and size and all those top-of-the-range bells and whistles come for less than six-and-a-half grand and with that five-year warranty from the world’s

fifth-largest carmaker?

So what’s wrong with it?

Not a lot.

Certainly not build quality. It is built in India whose nationals, Prince Philip thoughtfully reminded us on a factory visit in Edinburgh back in 1999, cannot install a modern fusebox.

Well, Your RH, let’s not forget who, as this publication goes to press, is in the process of buying Jaguar and your beloved Land Rover: Tata, which already owns Corus and Tetley Tea.

Our pals on the subcontinent will have confounded him with the i10, where everything fits and works just fine.

Granted, some of the plastics don’t feel as nice to the touch as those in some, generally much-dearer, cars.

And while I never fell off, the seats are rather flat – you sit on rather than in them – and the upholstery, while doubtless durable, feels rather hard and shiny.

But there are no lashings of interior paint to remind you how inexpensive it is and just think, almost a couple of decades back it would have cost you £4,900 – far more in real terms – to put a horrid plastic-seated Hyundai Sonnet in the driveway.

Low-cost motoring was never this good.

We’ll all be singing in the bath as the UK economy goes down the plughole this time around.

OF COURSE, we are still waiting for the perfect car.

And that top-of-the-range Style model has one feature that a growing number of local motorists do not want – a clutch pedal.

Not to worry. The mid-range i10 Comfort does offer the option of an £800 four-speed automatic box that lifts the price only to a still-modest £6,795.

The Comfort’s alloy wheels are an inch smaller, you lose the front-seat warmers and some trim gewgaws that most won’t miss much.

And you gain some headroom you probably won’t use – look upon it as sacrificing a very desirable sunroof and £300 for the convenience of two-pedal motoring.

A price worth paying? Lamontably, yes, given the traffic in which most of us drive.

The good news is that the proper, torque-converter, four-speed box  saves the hassle around Town but on the open road it offers virtually the same top gearing as the manual – around 20mph per 1,000 revs – so the two-pedal i10 should still be a viable M-way or peage cruiser.

There is a small penalty at the pumps for moving up to luxury Style spec manual and a rather heavier one for choosing the Classic-plus-automatic transmission.

In the UK, they lift the car over the key 120g/km CO2 emission threshold.

Here, we just have to drive a little more frugally or pay a smidgeon extra at the pump.

A price worth paying?

I think so, Norman.