At the end of two long days and several thousand kilometers of collective testing, our jury of five agreed that they had been in the company of two driver cars truly suited to the spectacular roads of Aberdeenshire in the competition of Britain’s best affordable driver’s car of this year – but only one was really a deserving winner. This car was the wonderful, perhaps even surprising, Hyundai i20 N.
As is the case with these things, each judge awarded each competing car a score out of a maximum of 25 points based on the driver’s attractiveness versus value for money, as this is how BBADC works. The i20 N was the only car impressive enough to consistently score 20 or more points. Only one car could have beaten it, and then only if we had let the Caterham Super Seven’s brands stand in a peloton against which it rivaled for the benefit of so many natural advantages. In the end, we just couldn’t.
The Caterham was less than half the weight of the next lightest car tested. It took with it the sharp performance, increased agility, and smoother suspension rates associated with that curb weight. In addition, it was the only car tested capable of bypassing normal type approval restrictions and, despite a driving experience that shone like nothing else in the field, it offered a significantly less usable ownership proposition than its opponents. You would always find reasons to drive the Seven if it was yours, but you could never use it as a sedan.
For these and other reasons, it wouldn’t have been fair to brand the Caterham in the same way as its 1.5-ton, front-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive rivals. Much fairer, as one tester put it, to treat him like Lewis Hamilton as a single guest in a Formula Ford race: enjoy the show and use it as a yardstick if you want to, but don’t attribute it to it. championship points.
The lion’s share of these, rightly so, has gone to a car that appears to be a big step forward for the Hyundai N performance sub-brand. One with an appealing and refreshing price tag and a more serious performance character. than what you might expect from a fast city car, sure; but also the one that can tear down a winding mountain pass faster than cars costing five figures more and hold your attention and enthusiasm just as well as it holds up.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-08-28 05:01:23
