The i30 N was teased and teased again, most recently, by the RN30 concept car at the Paris Auto Show, but it won’t be available for all markets. However, its powertrain will be, albeit packaged in another body.
According to Car&Driver, Albert Biermann, Hyundai’s head of product development, suggested that another N-branded car will be available as well, which will use the I30N’s 2.0-litre, 260 hp turbocharged four-banger.
"The next car is focused on the U.S. and Korea—it’s a different platform. After that, there’s another one for Europe, then I start thinking about China—but the Chinese have not discovered what a performance car is yet, we need to tell them a little bit about it,” said Biermann
Although it’s too early to speculate about the third model, the American magazine believes Hyundai’s second N machine will be based on the Elantra, especially as the model is already being sold in South Korea as the Avante, and it’s the car maker’s newest model in both markets.
As for the i30 N, don’t sweat it too much. Biermann went on questioning the other car makers’ obsession with setting a lap record on the infamous Nurburgring:
“Forget it, we’re not going for that. We were working on tuning at the Nürburgring, but not a lap time number. We know the car is fast, but there’s no plan to offer it with cup tires or without rear seats. Of course, I can speak to Michelin or Pirelli and get them to make me some nice tires, maybe go 10 seconds quicker on the Nordschleife . . . [but] we don’t want to do this.”
Even so, he confirmed that Hyundai is working on an even more powerful, all-wheel-drive i30 which hasn’t been marked for production (yet), looking for various powertrain solutions:
“We look at all kinds of solutions, and of course we talk to suppliers, just like Ford does,” he said. “Yes, we have started this sort of thing, and we always want to have [a] strong value for [the] money, we need to be sure the customer benefit for such expensive technology is really there.”
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