It's been less than a week since Hyundai revealed their Volkswagen Golf GTI challenger — the i30 N — and already the manufacturer are considering producing a harder, faster version.
In an interview with Top Gear, Hyundai boss Albert Biermann confirmed that they had been testing an all-wheel drive variant. However he stopped short of saying that it would make it to production. Not just yet, anyway.
“We have been testing four-wheel drive. But there is no plan at the moment to offer an N car with it,” he said.
“Of course we are looking into this. We have all our in-house tech, and the cost of the car could still be reasonable. But we are just starting with the N brand. People need time to discover N, and understand what it is. Maybe later we can add stuff like this. There are prototypes out there and it is not a big deal to do it.”
What Biermann did say was that a paddleshift gearbox is on its way, saying that it will be introduced into the N range “sooner or later” before affirming that “manual has to survive, of course!”
Making the i30 N all-wheel drive seems like a natural step for Hyundai. The bulk of the top tier hot hatch segment utilize all-wheel drive with the Civic Type R something of an outlier.
It also makes sense in the grand scheme of the manufacturer's marketing strategy, since the N division has strong ties to Hyundai's World Rally Championship squad.Who, of course, campaign all-wheel drive i30s.