Hyundai i30 Fastback N REVEALED – as it does Rome to Paris in 8 minutes

The new Hyundai i30 Fastback N is revealed ahead of its public debut at the Paris Motor Show in a race from Rome to Paris in just over eight minutes.

Last week, it was announced that the new Hyundai i30 Fastback N was racing from Rome to Paris as an opener for the launch of Hyundai’s second ‘N’ Performance model for Europe. But it didn’t add up.

There was no way Hyundai would countenance a race on public roads from Rome to Paris, so we figured it must be something else. And it was.

The race from Rome to Paris turns out to be between the Danish villages of Rome and Paris, a distance of some eight miles and all on closed roads. It took Gabriele Tarquini 8:18.49 to finish the race in the Fastback N, with Thierry Neuville a fraction of a second behind. So now you know.

The i30 Fastback N is exactly what you’d expect, with the more appealing Fastback i30 getting the go-faster look of the i30 N Hatch including butch bumpers, twin exhausts, triangular fogs, boot spoiler and black details.

Under the skin all is the same as the i30 N, with either 248bhp in standard guise or 272bhp in the performance version, with o-62mph coming in 6.1 seconds in the Performance Fastback.

Andreas-Christoph Hofmann, Hyundai VP, said:

With the All-New i30 Fastback N, Hyundai again sets new standards in the market, enhancing the brand’s appeal with highly emotional products.

With the new hot coupe our customers will enjoy the same driving fun of i30N packaged in the car’s beautiful GT like shape wherever they drive!

Expect the Hyundai i30 Fastback N to arrive in the UK in early 2019, and you can also probably expect any future Hyundai ‘N’ debut in the US to be trumpeted with a world record race from Philadelphia to Washington. That’s Philadelphia and Washington in Tyne and Wear, less than five miles apart.

Hyundai i30 Fastback N Video