Car Moon

South Korean carmaker Hyundai announced it has sold five million vehicles in Europe since the first Hyundai Pony was imported in 1977. The five millionth vehicle was an i30, which was launched in 2007 and has sold a little over 320,000 units on the continent. From the five million sales, the last million was achieved in just three years, a proof of Hyundai's accelerated growth in Europe. Read more »

There's been a lot of confusion lately about the spy pictures of the next Hyundai i30. To elaborate, many readers on various websites and forums supported that the scoops may be showing a Kia. Thanks to some additional work from our spy photographers, we can now put the brand speculations to rest. What you see here is indeed a Hyundai, with this being proved by the brand's logo on the alloy wheels as well as the typical Hyundai styling of the interior.

Okay, so we've established it's a Hyundai, but could it be the new five-door Accent? Well, we doubt it because we saw the new Accent hatch at last month's Montreal Auto Show in Canada and it looks quite different inside and out. So that leaves us with the i30 (and yes, our spy photographer assured us it was larger than the...i20).

With that out of the way, let's see what we can find out from these spy photos. Although the prototype is carefully bagged up, it's pretty clear that the new i30 will be a sleeker proposal to look at with an edgier exterior design than the current model.

The 300,000th Hyundai rolled off the firm's manufacturing facility in Nošovice, Czech Republic, marking a new production milestone for the company in Europe. The vehicle was a white i30 CW, which is the station wagon version of the European market i30 compact hatch.

Designer Eduardo Oliveira has sent us some interesting photoshops of some cars from the Hyundai-Kia lineups. First is a more traditional, wagon version of the Forte (or Cerato) as opposed to the production Forte 5-door hatch. Second is the a look at what the a sedan version of the i30 (Elantra Touring in the States) could look like. Any thoughts?

Looks can be greatly deceiving as Hyundai proves with its new special edition i30 Sport versions that were launched in Germany today. Despite their sporty appearance and promising name, the i30 Sport Hatchback and Crossover Wagon (sold in the U.S. as the Elantra Touring) only differ visually from their normal siblings as there aren't any mechanical changes. To be produced in a limited run of just 200 units, the hatchback is offered with a 126HP 1.6-liter petrol engine while the Crossover Wagon with a 140HP 2.0-liter turbo diesel.

The Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), South Korea's premium public broadcaster, recently aired a program that focused on Hyundai's R&D facility located in Namyang, Korea. Among other things, the show revealed a prototype model of the next-generation Hyundai Sonata undergoing testing as well as a camouflaged 2010 Hyundai Tuscon and a designers sketch depicting what appears to be a proposal for facelifted i30 hatchback. The new Sonata that will be called i40 in Europe and other international markets, is due to arrive in Hyundai's dealerships by early-2010.

The first ever special edition version of the i30 promises to bring a little colour to Hyundai’s UK dealerships as it will be available in three exclusive colours - Crystal White, Ember Red and Indigo Blue – that have never been seen before on the subcompact hatch. Colours aside, the special edition i30 also gets a factory-fitted electric sunroof, 16-inch alloy wheels and new door mirrors first seen on the i30 Estate model.

All of the i30 SE (Special Edition) models are powered by Hyundai’s 1.4-litre, 107 HP petrol engine which returns 46.3 mpg UK (38.6 mpg US). Hyundai says that just 700 of the i30 SEs will be available, priced at £11,845. The first cars are expected to reach showrooms on 25 August.

Every car manufacture that respects itself nowadays needs to have a unique logo for its cleanest and most environmentally friendly vehicles. Hyundai on its behalf is introducing the i-Blue insignia that will appear on every car in its range that manages to offer emissions below the 120g/km barrier. The first production model to bear the i-Blue logo will be an i30 hatchback powered by the company’s 1.6-litre CRDi turbo diesel engine and it will make its debut at the British Motor Show in London (July 22 to Aug 3). -Continued

So what’s so special about the i30 i-Blue? Well, Hyundai’s engineers managed to achieve a 6g/km drop in CO2 emissions over the standard i30 1.6-litre CRDi model thanks to a minor change to the gear ratios. There are no other changes whatsoever – we’re not kidding. Don’t you just love marketing?