Hyundai i20 N Review (2021-2024)
Hyundai i20 N cars for sale
4.0
Expert review
Pros
Thrilling to drive
Strong performance
Good value for what it is
Cons
Very firm ride
Styling is an acquired taste
Ford Fiesta ST is even more fun
The CarGurus verdict
On the right road, with the right traffic level (none) and when you’re in the right mood, few cars will put a bigger grin on your face than an i20 N, and it occupies what is now a sparsely populated space in the hot hatch market.
It’s well equipped, should prove thoroughly reliable and promises reasonable running costs. If its interior were a bit smarter and its ride a little more comfortable, it might well be king of the small hot hatchbacks.
Which makes it all the more of a shame that Hyundai discontinued the i20 N in the UK in early 2024 to concentrate on electric performance models.
What is the Hyundai i20 N?
Once upon a time, the hot hatchback was a bit of a punk, a symbol of youthful rebellion. The recipe was simple: take a regular small car, drop in a large, powerful engine, sharpen up the chassis, add a spoiler or two, and bingo: sports car fun for not a lot of money. You could even fit kids in the back and shopping in the boot.
Now, though, 400bhp, four-wheel-drive and price tags that wouldn’t surprise a Porsche owner are the norm. The value-for-money element has all but disappeared and so, too, has some of the fun.
The i20 N, then, goes back to the roots of what makes hot hatches so brilliant. It’s got a feisty 1.6-litre 201bhp four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, front-wheel drive, a six-speed manual transmission and a price tag of around £25,000. This makes it, along with the Ford Fiesta ST, comfortably one of the best value performance cars around.
It’s not as fast as some hot hatches – it takes 6.5 seconds to hit 62mph, which still isn't slow – but it's light, like a Fiesta ST (less than 1,200kg), and its compact dimensions promise the sort of agility that’s missing from larger, faster hot hatches.
How practical is it?
A hot hatch doesn’t have to be as practical as an MPV, but it does need to cope with everyday chores and, considering its size, the i20 N does very well indeed. A Volkswagen Golf GTI is comfortably larger, both in terms of interior space and luggage capacity, but it is also significantly more expensive and not as much fun.
The i20 N's five-door layout is eminently practical and, despite the chunky sports seats restricting the view for rear passengers, there’s plenty of headroom and legroom back there. It also has a 352-litre boot, which is significantly larger than the 292 litres you’ll find in a Ford Fiesta ST.
Its small footprint also makes it easy to negotiate tight parking spaces. Big alloy wheels and a mechanical limited-slip differential mean it has a disappointingly poor turning circle, but that’s par for the course with a small hot hatch.
What's it like to drive?
In short: the i20 N is an absolute hoot. The 1.6-litre engine is strong and willing all the way through the rev range, the steering is well weighted (although it’s perhaps a bit too heavy in the upper reaches of the multitude of customisable drive settings) and it corners with very little body roll and oodles of grip. The limited-slip differential maximises traction, which really helps in corners.
The simple, six-speed manual gearbox is a pleasure to shift through, though thanks to a swell of torque even at low revs, you rarely feel like you’ve been caught off boost or out of gear.
Switch to N mode and the differential, steering, accelerator and exhaust all get turned up several notches. Press the red button on the steering wheel, and the rev matching function automatically blips the throttle when you change down a gear, to match up the revs with the drivetrain and create a faster, sporty shift. All this makes the i20 N a real thrill ride, and you may feel as though you could pop on a helmet and some fireproof overalls and fling it down a WRC special stage.
What you might also discover is a car that feels rather too stiff for comfortable everyday use, and herein lies the problem. The i20 N is only truly happy at maximum attack, and on the public road that’s rarely, if ever, possible. If you're just pottering to the shops, the stiff suspension constantly bounces you around, the steering is tiresomely heavy and the differential creaks and hops when you’re manoeuvring on full lock.
It quickly becomes irritating in a way you won’t experience in the more chilled-out Fiesta ST, but it's always massive fun when you’re in the mood.
Technology, equipment & infotainment
There’s a fair old roster of standard equipment in the i20N, including a heated steering wheel, heated front seats, climate control, automatic emergency braking, a driver alert warning, satnav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless phone charging and a rear-view camera with rear parking sensors. The configurable digital driver’s display in lieu of old-fashioned analogue instruments is a welcome high-end touch, while the 10-inch central touchscreen is sharper than the equivalent in the Fiesta ST.
It’s a shame that neither cruise control nor blind spot assist are available, and you also can't get Hyundai’s neat camera tech which, in some models, displays a view behind the car on whatever side you’re indicating.
The i20 N's interior also falls a little short when it comes to build quality. We’ve no doubt that the fixtures and fittings will probably outlast mankind, but they don’t feel especially smart, and the sea of drab grey plastic is only marginally lifted by a few blue flashes here and there. It’s not a great experience in a regular i20, but feels genuinely disappointing in a £25,000 hot hatch.
The i20 N's resale values should be pretty good, which means competitive monthly finance rates, or for those who buy outright, a reasonable chunk of change when you come to sell it.
Expect it to be very similar to the Fiesta ST on both price and finance payments – they’re even in the same insurance group – but the Hyundai has lower servicing costs.
Fuel economy is, of course, linked to how restrained you can be with the right-hand pedal, but the i20 N's relatively low weight pays dividends. Official figures suggest you should achieve 40.4 mpg, and we actually got pretty close to that during our time with the car, which included some enthusiastic spells.
It's too early to tell how the i20 N stacks up on reliability, but Hyundai generally fares pretty well. It came third out of 30 manufacturers in the most recent What Car? reliability survey, although it finished 16th out of 29 brands in the equivalent Driver Power assessment.
Hyundai's five-year, unlimited-mileage warranty is one of the better offerings among car manufacturers and, on the whole, the brand has a reputation for building dependable vehicles.
- The i20 N has quite the cheeky sense of humour: switch the car into ‘N’ mode and an animated flame graphic erupts from the digital driver’s display, as the car morphs into its most exciting mode. It even goads you into switching into ‘N’ mode when its GPS spots a twisty country road: ‘S-bend ahead. N mode on?’
- Hyundai’s chassis development team was, until his retirement at the end of 2021, spearheaded by a man called Albert Biermann. This doesn’t seem relevant until you learn that Mr Biermann’s previous job was as head of BMW's M Division, the part of BMW responsible for developing all its most accomplished performance cars, including various iterations of the legendary M3, M4 and M5.
- If you don’t like the i20 N’s Performance Blue paint, there are six other colours to choose from, but only cars specced in Dragon Red lose the red-striped detailing on the sills and splitters. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up to you. The paintwork is, in fact, the only available option, as everything else is standard-fit.
- If you want a fast supermini: There’s only one choice of trim when it comes to the i20 N: the 1.6 201bhp turbo petrol. There are other less performance-focused i20s available, such as those in N Line trim.
- How about a fast SUV? The Kona N is a fair bit more expensive than the i20 (to the tune of around £10,000), but it also gets a significantly more powerful 2.0-litre turbocharged engine with 276bhp, an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission and a 0-62mph time of 5.5 seconds.
- If you want the original N car, the i30 N hot hatch is around the same size as a Volkswagen Golf GTI but rather more powerful, with the same 2.0-litre 276bhp turbocharged petrol engine as the Kona N, and a choice of six-speed manual or the same eight-speed dual-clutch automatic, also from the Kona N.
