Road test: Hyundai Bayon

Petrol-engines still dominate, with 56 per cent of sales of new cars last year. Nissan’s UK-built Qashqai was easily the best seller but the fully electric Tesla Model Y was third and with the Model 3 it dominated BEV sales — one in six new cars recorded by the SMMT trade body.

My motoring year started, predictably for my tastes, with a small turbo petrol car with mild hybrid electrical assistance. It is called Bayon and is made for Europe by South Korea’s huge Hyundai group in a factory in Izmet, Turkey, 60 miles east of Istanbul. This is where the Roman emperor Constantine died in AD 337.

In calling its car the Bayon Hyundai has swerved away from Rome and Turkey towards the Pays Basque capital of Bayonne.

Hyundai sold more than 80,000 last year, a new UK record since it arrived in the 1980s. Rather late in the day, it has decided to let us know how to pronounce the H word with an amusing TV, radio and on-line advert. We have been saying high-un-dye but in Seoul the word is sharper, something like hyun-day. The company says the change “marks a new era” for the company in the UK. Or marks at least a new year.

I’ve been saying it Korean-style since 1987 when Hyundai, still a small name, took a press group to see its factories. The most impressive was its shipyard. It is still the most interesting factory I’ve visited. The man from the Daily Mail bought a fake Burberry coat, which looked OK from a distance, like tent canvas close-up. Another bought eel-skin shoes. We ate punchy fermented food and I believe some dog.

Hyundai is today a significant world presence 55 years after its start. Slogan: progress for humanity. Platforms are urban clean air vehicles using electric and hydrogen. Its electric Kona has a 300-mile range. Customers love them. They have a five-year warranty and roadside assistance with unlimited mileage. Electric models get an eight-year, 100,000 mile warranty on the battery pack. Technology is shared with Kia, part of the Hyundai family, which passed the 100,000 UK annual sales mark last year.

And the Bayon? I liked it. The problem for the customer these days is walking into a real or online showroom (www.hyundai.co.uk) and getting bewildered by the different models, many just a small step up or down from each other. Visiting a Kia showroom would compound this, without the gamut of worthy contenders from the Stellantis and VW groups. To help, possibly, the Bayon is marketed as a “stylish urban crossover SUV”. Harrumph, you hear? Think of a five-door, five-seater hatchback with roof rails, front-wheel-drive, one-litre petrol turbo engines with decent economy, nice road manners, a rorty chuckle from the three-cylinder motor, no horny SUV stuff but the buyer will not fuss over that.

The exterior styling is sleek at the front, with a fake intake along the bonnet edge. There’s a bit too much going on at the back for my tastes but it’s all in vogue. Inside it is less flashy. There’s a touch screen with buttons and tabs and voice control for most functions including the ventilation. There is storage galore and the rear parcel shelf parks behind the seat.

Choose from 99bhp and 118bhp versions: that’s 100ps or 120ps in EU ratings. We had the weaker of the two engines but with the same torque so the missing 19bhp wasn’t apparent. This motor and the manual shift drivetrain give a smooth and responsive drive. The start-up routine is to have the gearbox in neutral, the clutch and brake pedals depressed and then turn the key. If you should stall the car (what, me?) you can’t short-cut the routine. The gearbox must be in neutral. I confess to some muddled moments.

It moves nicely. Arrows advise a higher gear, sometimes at much lower revs than you'd expect, say, fifth to sixth at just over 1,000rpm, a testament to the torquey engine. A coasting mode idles or cuts the engine to save fuel.

There are Eco, Comfort and Sport modes. The latter turns the dials red and re-sets the engine and steering responses but not so much that I could tell.

I did appreciate the speed limit display alongside the actual speed, and the warning of cameras. You get a two-tone doorbell chime in advance, and a different chime passing under the camera. Sadly, some crash protection issues meant four stars (out of five) in the EuroNcap tests.

Hyundai Bayon.

It is: Five doors, five seats, contender in the heart of the new car market, headed by the Ford Puma. All versions are well-equipped.

Economy: 53mpg and 119g to 121g CO2. On test mpg usually in the mid 40s. Long-term 46mpg over 2,227 miles. Best on our test 50mpg

Performance: 0-62mph around 10.5 seconds.

Power: Mild hybrid one-litre petrol turbo with 99bhp or 118bhp, each with 127 lb ft of torque. Six-speed manual or seven-speed dual clutch automatic gearboxes.

Length:165in (4.2m).

Prices:£20,880 to £26,380. Models: SE Connect (99bhp only), Premium, Ultimate.

Test car: Premium, manual gears, 100ps (99bhp) at £23,080. Automatic £24,330. Add £750 for 118bhp engine.