The Hyundai i20, a car that comes in 8 of the dullest and most boring colours the automotive market has ever seen, is, however, a rally hero when you strip back the paint and put on its Shell livery.

After its 2008 release, the i20 has undergone several model iterations, and I think we’re all thankful for that. In a story not too dissimilar to the Ugly Duckling, the i20 has grown from a boring, rounded car your gran would drive to a more edgy, better-looking, angrier vehicle that I quite like.

The i20 competes against other superminis, such as the Ford Fiesta, Peugeot 208 and Volkswagen Polo, which have proven, time and time again, to be more popular. Still, with the reliability the car offers, you can’t really fault it.

The car comes with seven different four-cylinder engine options, giving you more than enough choice for the one you want. 

But the i20 is an essential car for Hyundai, as it marked their return to the WRC. Hyundai used the i20 when it returned to the WRC in 2014, after a 10-year absence. And they even won the manufacturers’ championship in 2019.

The car they now enter into the WRC is the Hyundai i20 N Rally1, a high-performance model. This feels like the inception of performance, but it is working out quite well for them, as they finished fourth and fifth in the 2025 championship table.

As far as the baseline i20 goes, it does feel a lot more boring compared to its cooler rally-ready brother, and I don’t think I could buy one knowing the N model was lurking about. It’s a good car for daily driving, but I don’t know if I would choose it over the VW Polo.

Top speed	114 mph
0-60	6.2 seconds
How many units were sold	not available (estimated to be over 2 million)
Cost when new	£22,100
Would I pretend I was rallying even in the baseline model?	yes

Either way, the Hyundai i20 is our car of the week, as I haven’t been able to get the image of the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 skidding around a corner, kicking up dust. I wish I could do that in that car.

“World Rally Car 2018” by _Hadock_ is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Tags

dan, boland, dan boland, cars, car of the week, hyundai, i20, n, rally, rally1, wrc, supermini, gran, ford, vw, volkswagen, peugeot, cotw, shell, livery