Hyundai i30 N hatchback - Interior & comfort

​The standard i30 is an excellent if conservatively styled car inside, and the Hyundai i30 N takes these solid principles and embellishes them with a few sporty touches. Sure, you won’t be blown away by its outrageous design, but the dashboard feels well built, the sports seats lock you in place and there’s plenty of kit as standard.

Hyundai i30 N dashboard

A 10.25-inch infotainment touchscreen is standard on the i30 N, sitting ‘floating’ in the middle of the dashboard. Some may wish for a retracting screen, but at least there are physical shortcut buttons to pull up the various infotainment features. It works very well and has lots of features, including Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, along with lots of setup menus for the car's performance features.

There are sporty addenda, too. Flashes of sky-blue plastic – an i30 N theme – appear on the sports gearknob, the upholstery stitching and the steering-wheel-mounted driving-mode buttons. The lightweight suede sports seats are impressively supportive without being overly firm and offer plenty of adjustment, making it easy to find the right driving position. 

And while the infotainment system and non-driving-mode steering-wheel buttons aren’t the most intuitive around, after a period of acclimatisation you should be able to get to grips with the feature-rich setup.

Equipment

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As a range-topping model, the i30 N gets lots of kit as standard. While it’s fair to say most of your money goes on the handling-enhancing systems described in the previous section, you also get cruise control, LED headlights, an electronic parking brake, a reversing camera, keyless entry and go and a wireless phone-charging pad. The i30 N also comes with a great deal of safety equipment as standard.
Most buyers opt for the N Performance model, which is why Hyundai has discontinued the standard car in the UK. This version has more power, the active, electronically enhanced exhaust, the electronic limited-slip differential, as well as upgraded brakes with ‘N’ branding on the red calipers. It also has 19-inch forged alloys instead of 18-inch wheels