It's somewhat surprising that more brands don't do it.
Mount Panorama's standing as one of the world's greatest circuits often sees it getting compared to Germany's Nürburgring Nordschliefe — though shorter and populated by a much higher concentration of bogans.
The fact that more manufacturers don't pop down here to test their cars is a strange one, though it probably links to just how far away from the rest of the world Australia (and by proxy New Zealand) is. Mercedes-AMG did a little bit earlier this year with their new GT R, and now Hyundai's doing it too with their little new i30 N hot hatch.
“We do a lot of testing at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, but there are also other very challenging race tracks out there, and one of the most challenging is Bathurst here in Australia,” said Hyundai's Vice President of high-performance engineering, Albert Biermann.
“It’s a very good experience to drive here at Mount Panorama and include the data we gather into our tuning that we will continue in Europe. I think the right driver on this track would have a lot of fun with the i30 N.”
In the clip at the head of this article you can get a taste for how testing went. Thankfully, it looks like Hyundai are on the right track. The i30 N bangs and pops all the way up, over, and down Mount Panorama — clipping plenty of apexes and curbs in a convincing manner along the way.
Just last week Driven got a sneak peak of the i30 N in Seoul, as a cheeky surprise while on the lauch of the new Kona crossover. And, we were rather impressed.
The questions now are how it's going to look, and where exactly its specs and price will stack up next to its rivals (including the likes of the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Ford Focus ST). It's expected to land in New Zealand towards the end of 2017.
