On the road: Hyundai i30 Turbo – car review

'It swam into sixth gear with discernible enthusiasm; the torque could blow your cheeks back'

It's the sportiest in the Hyundai range; it has sportier wheel arches, a sportier, more shapely grill, an all-round aura of sportiness.

But I wasn't struck by it, not at first. Who reads a car's personality in its grill? Then I got in and it all changed: the steering wheel is leather with red stitching. Visible stitching shouts "fun", because it subconsciously reminds you of saddlebags and other horse paraphernalia. It shouts, speed for the hell of it, speed you didn't know was coming; it has been yelling, "You are about to go much faster than walking" since the 1880s.

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