Automatics For The People

The much-improved dual-clutch version of the Hyundai i30 n goes head to head with ford’s fierce focus st auto. We pick a winner

- Andy Enright

Is there anything more tedious, in the entire automotive firmament, than a manual gearbox fundamentalist? These absolutists are up there with swivel-eyed Elon Musk jocksniffers and pedants who can only find true happiness in informing you that you’re cleaning your car incorrectly. A true manual gearbox fundamentalist will never accept that there are times when an automatic transmission makes more sense because a manual is just better, obviously. End of.

Blissfully unencumbered by the shackles of nuance yet armed with an encyclopaedic repertoire of 20-year-old Clarkson rejoinders, they’d hate the two cars lined up before us. Because, they’d know that of all the genres of cars that need manual gearboxes, hot hatches are right at the top of that pile, nosing just ahead of Everything Else. And, for a while, all was good with the Hyundai i30 N.

When the Koreans launched the original version back in 2017, a six-speed manual was the sole transmission choice. It was a good ‘un too, slick and wristy with an auto-blip function if your heel-and-toe down changes needed some polishing. We’ve all seen the stats though. Only around 3 per cent of Australian cars are sold with manual gearboxes, so if Hyundai wanted to broaden the appeal of the i30 N, something clearly needed to be done.

Just not very quickly. Fast forward four years and we now have the eight-speed dual-clutch version of the i30 N. That would be worthy of note if that was all that had happened to the i30 N, but it isn’t. On the sly, Hyundai has been through the car, effecting some fairly fundamental changes. Most obviously, the car has been treated to a bit of Botox, with updated LED lights and a revised grille.