SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


First drive: Hyundai’s new Gen-Y sport hatch with an odd number of doors

Pics supplied

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday April 24, 2013

Beyond fluidic scuplture

This is a launch report. In other words, it's simply a new model announcement. The driving experience was limited to a short drive over a prepared course chosen to make the product look good. We can therefore not tell you what it will be like to live with over an extended period, how economical it is, or how reliable it will be. A very brief first impression is all we can give you until such time as we get an actual test unit for trial. Thank you for your patience.


Take a two-door coupé with big rear hatchway and add a door for convenience. Or take a four-door coupé with big rear hatchway and subtract a door for safety. Huh? How about we call it a coupé with a big rear hatchway and three doors – two on the left and one on the right? It makes sense, because we don’t want our children using a street side door, do we?

Hyundai’s new Veloster is aimed primarily at Gen-Y buyers; young singles or couples up to the arbitrary age of 36 (born 1977 or beyond), whose passengers would mostly be young children for whom ISOFix anchorages and child-proof locks are fitted. Also there, is an impressive eight-speaker audio system supporting radio, CD, MP3 and a range of external devices; thanks to auxiliary, USB, iPod and Bluetooth connectivity.

The music system displays its functions on a large LCD screen in the centre console, while the steering wheel is equipped with remote buttons for sound and for setting cruise control. Bluetooth connections with one’s mobile telephone, and audio streaming from it, can be set up effortlessly via touch-screen commands on the same seven-inch LCD information screen. It also lets you scroll easily through your music playlist or ‘phone book contacts.

Going a step beyond “Fluidic Sculpture,” the new car’s design philosophy is described as “Carving Ray.” At first glance, its back end looked rather like that of the Toyota 86, but then we reconsidered; Veloster has more scoops, hollows and creases. Ray has certainly been carving, but the overall effect is pleasing. Just as you need to think a little outside that box to accept the odd number of doors, so you need to do the same to acknowledge its styling.

Easier to accept is its engine, suspension and brakes. Up front are tried and true McPherson struts with stabiliser bar, coil springs and twin-tube gas shocks, while the rear end uses a coupled torsion beam with coils and gas-filled monotube dampers. Brakes are 280 mm ventilated discs with floating calipers at the business end and 262 mm solid discs with floating calipers at the rear. Power is courtesy of the venerable 1.6-litre Gamma engine, breathed on slightly to put out eight more kilowatts and an extra10 Newton-metres. Those greedy for yet more power can expect their dreams to be realised when the turbocharged version arrives later this year.

The six-speed manual gearbox remains in service, but has been joined by a new six-ratio twin- (dry) clutch device developed and built by Hyundai. It shifts quietly, quickly and smoothly without any obvious vices and should prove useful for users whose daily commute includes hours of heavy traffic.

While Veloster may be aimed at twentyish to thirty-somethings, they do need to be reasonably high earners. Its pricing is certainly not at entry point but build quality, fit and finish and levels of standard equipment are ‘way beyond Spartan too. Consider six airbags, ABS brakes with EBD, and electronic stability program with VSC and anti-yaw. Then add filtered climate control, fog lamps at both ends, part-leather seats with anti-submarining, lumbar adjustment for the driver, follow-me-home headlights, powered windows with single-touch operation and anti-pinch for the driver, an onboard computer, electric outside mirrors that fold, and rear parking assistance with camera.

A 200-km ride and drive from Doonside, through the Midlands and back to the coast, showed that this new Hyundai is easy-driving, quiet, solid and has more than enough performance for its intended audience. The boot is decently sized at 440 litres and the seatbacks fold in the usual way to reveal yet more cargo space. Our only reservation is that its coupé styling makes things almost impossible for tall passengers in the back seat.

Information gathered at an importer-sponsored press launch

The numbers
Prices: R259 900 (man), R276 900 (auto)
Engine: 1591 cc, DOHC, double CVVT, 16-valve, four-cylinder
Power: 103 kW at 6300 rpm
Torque: 167 Nm at 4850 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 9,7 seconds (man), 10,3 seconds (auto)
Average fuel consumption, Euro test: 8,4 l/100 km
CO2 gm/km: 163 (m), 161(a)
Tank: 50 litres
Warranty: 5 years/150 000 km; with roadside assistance
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km; at 15 000 km intervals

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.

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