Hyundai i20 N hot hatch soon

The first hard-core hot hatch to wear Hyundai's much-talked about but seldom seen 'N' high-performance badge will be the i20 hatch, which not coincidentally also forms the basis of Hyundai's World Rally Championship assault.

The 'N' brand refers to Hyundai's Namyang research and development hub, which according Hyundai's Head of Powertrain Engineering, Jurgen Grimm, is going to remain busy in the next few years.

During an interview at the Paris motor show, the Korean brand's engine supremo told Australian journalists that the time is ripe for a hard-core i20 hot hatch, with 10 months passed since the company announced the introduction of its N brand.

"Think i20, there is a big logo called N and it is a sporty brand. They are thinking to set-up such a car with 1.6-litre turbo, 250 horsepower, something like that, as a kind of replica for a WRC car," he said.

Grimm said the i20 N, which is about the size of Toyota Yaris or Mazda2, would be powered by the same turbocharged 1.6-litre engine used in the Hyundai Veloster Turbo and Kia Pro_cee'd GT, albeit with a lot more power.

Pumping out up to 250hp or about 185kW, the Hyundai i20 N would naturally require several chassis upgrades, and you can be sure that Hyundai will want to do the project justice, particularly if it's to serve as a road-going homage to the i20 WRC.

That means bigger brakes, bigger wheels, fatter tyres, sports suspension, a full body kit and possibly even tweaks to the steering.

The new vehicle will rival the Volkswagen Polo R and the likes of the Ford Fiesta ST, but it's unclear whether it would be based on the new i20 five-door shown in Paris or the three-door 'coupe' version so far only revealed in heavily stylised sketch form.

There's only one snag. The second-generation i20 is not yet confirmed for Australia, where it would need to be imported from Europe rather than India, as is the case with the existing i20, which will remain on sale indefinitely.

There is scope for Hyundai's sister company Kia to develop a similar hot hatch based on the next-generation Rio. Grimm says there's no reason that won't be the case with the next generation model due in a couple of years.

"We have everything available for a Rio hot hatch," he said. "It is available for all platforms. So for the Rio we have not packaged the Gamma [engine] family yet. But the Rio will be its [i20 N] sister model. Anything is possible.

"It's only a question regarding the branding. From the platform wise, if you have it once, it would be – from our side – a logical consequence to roll it out to increase volume," said Grimm.

At the other end of the powertrain scale, Hyundai used the Paris show to roll out a range of new downsized turbo-petrol engines, a new seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission and a 48-volt i40 hybrid concept.

Set to power the i20 in Europe next year is a new Kappa 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbocharged direct-injection (T-GDI) engine developing 90kW and 172Nm (around the same as Volkswagen's 77kW/175Nm 1.2-litre turbo-four).

Developed at Hyundai’s European Technical Centre in Rüsselsheim, Germany, it replaces Hyundai's 1.0-litre MPI engine and meets Euro 6c emission standards three years ahead of their introduction in 2017.

Also new is a Kappa 1.4-litre T-GDI engine that's smaller and, at 87kg, 14kg lighter than the Gamma 1.4 it replaces.

Matched with Hyundai's first seven-speed DCT with twin dry clutches, it was showcased in a compressed natural gas-powered (CNG) i30 concept, which produces 87kW/206Nm and emits just 87g/km of CO2 in CNG mode – less than a Toyota Prius hybrid.

Finally, the i40 48V Hybrid is claimed to add just 46kg and cost a quarter of a full hybrid to build, by replacing a conventional starter motor with a 10kW belt-driven starter generator (BSG) and a fitting a 48-volt lead-carbon battery and larger turbo to boost the power of the car's 360Nm 1.7-litre turbo-diesel by 15 per cent and reduce CO2 output by up to 20 per cent.