Indian Autos blog

Hyundai Assan Otomotiv San, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Company and Turkey’s Kibar holding is planning to invest more than 600 million U.S. dollars to upgrade their Turkish facility for manufacturing more than 2,00,000 cars per annum.

The new Hyundai i10 (Code – BA) will be manufactured at this plant along with the Fluidic i20 introduced recently in India. Production of the next gen i10 will begin by the end of 2013.

By the end of September, Hyundai could bring out the LPG version of the i10, sources have told Indian Autos Blog. Hyundai is an environment-conscious car manufacturer with immense interest in alternate fuel variants. It brought out LPG variants of the Santro and Accent, and the upcoming HA is another candidate for this technology. Hyundai has also showcased the i10 EV at the Auto Expo which it plans to produce in Korea in limited numbers.

What has prompted the i10 LPG? The answer is in the blog posts of 2011 – the two main rivals Maruti Wagon R and Chevrolet Beat have received them and with looming petrol prices, market for LPG begins to open up. Hyundai does not have a diesel engine for the i10, it will take them at least till 2013 before one is eligible for market introduction. Fuel efficiency of the i10 can thus only be boosted with LPG.

The i10 LPG will meet BS4 emission norms. The tank size could be between 22-26 liters. Kia offers the Morning (based on the i10) with a Bi-Fuel variant. It uses a different ideology. The fuel tank is about 10 liters, while the underbody-mounted LPG tank can hold 37 liters of LPG. The primary fuel there is LPG while one switches over to petrol when he is range anxious.

This layout will not work in India as LPG availability is still in the developing stage. The chief fuel has to be petrol, while LPG kicks in when the tank is dry.

We’ll have to wait for a little while before technical specifications of the i10 LPG is released.

With competitors piling up the pressure with a new launch every other day, Hyundai is not sitting idle either. Come September 24, the i10 will get a new face along with a more powerful engine at a launch function scheduled to be held in Mumbai.

The design will be heavily influenced by their new design philosophy – Fluidic Sculpture. The design was showcased in the RB concept as well. The model is bolder with more aggressive headlamps and a hexagonal, honeycomb grill sprinkled with some chrome.

On the engine front, it will get the same 1.2-liter MPFI Kappa Petrol Engine but with VTVT (variable valve timing) and 2 added horsepower.

The interiors are expected to be the same with minor changes like a digital fuel gauge and a different background lighting.

It is expected to be Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 more expensive than the outgoing model.

Hyundai today confirmed to Indian Autos Blog that it will launch the new Hyundai i10 VTVT on the 23rd of this month. The VTVT variant is the 1.2-liter engine with variable valve timing, something we speculated back in February this year.

Specifications are unavailable at this moment, we expect marginal increase in power and torque. Fuel economy is also expected to improve slightly.

But the really big change comes in the form of a facelift to both the front and the rear of the vehicle. Styling cues for this facelift will be borrowed from the 2011 Avante, which adopts Hyundai’s new fluidic sculpture design.

This means the facelifted i10 will debut in India before it heads to Paris for a global unveil. The Paris Motor Show will see the launch of the 1.0-liter i10 too, which is not expected in India.

We brought you spy pics of the Hyundai H800 small car for India day before yesterday. We simply couldn’t stop trying to get details about the small Hyundai being tested under heavy camouflage. We had a detailed discussion with our avid follower who caught the mule. We were told the car looked taller than an Hyundai i10 and had the i10′s headlamps.

After hours of observations and estimations, we passed on our thougths to our ‘Design Director’ SRK, who almost instantly came up with this rendering of what the new Hyundai small car could look like.

Here are our observations of the spied Hyundai H800 small car that translated into this rendering. The car looked taller but narrower than an i10. The car had a plain side walls (signs of a low cost car). The camouflaged car has an interesting design element in the rear, the rear tail lamps (a white element sandwiched between two red elements vertically) were extended a little form the rear windscreen. The Nissan Micra and the new 2011 Maruti Swift could have such a design but the lamps were positioned a bit higher, so it cant be a Micra and the lamps weren’t as edgy as the Swift, so it is neither.

The observed profile at the rear look dangerously close to the previous rendering of the Hyundai H800 we had showed you (though the styling looked too futuristic the profile is the same).

As all Hyundais are, the sides of the car would look plain but interestingly styled nose and rear would manage to make the car look better. The sped car had the same traits.

The car could come with a small 800cc engine developed by Hyundai and would compete with the Maruti Alto and the upcoming 800cc Chevrolet Spark.

Hyundai has launched attractive colors and graphics on the i10 hatchback in Taiwan recently. The Korean company for a change, isn’t talking about how fuel efficient and powerful the Kappa engine is and about its ‘nice’ interiors with these new additions.

This of course is a limited run model that debuted at a popular music festival in Taiwan. The sporty i10 gets stripes, two-tone cockpit, unique alloys and iPod connectivity feature. There is no change to the powertrain.

In India however, Hyundai isn’t showing signs of going beyond small car borders. It could introduce new technology in its Kappa engine at a later date, but that could also be in the interest of fuel economy and emissions. A Hyundai i10 facelift, according to reports, is in the works and should be out by the end of this year.

Banger racing is a popular form of racing in the United Kingdom. It is like any other form of racing you’re used to. The concept is the winner is one who takes the checkered flag, except for one difference – You try and deliberately knock off your opponents on your way to the finish line. Injuries and deaths have been reported in this type of racing in the past. Not surprising.

While Banger racing is conducted using scrap cars and bunch of dudes who have nothing much to do in life, it is not often you see a new Hyundai i10 taking part in such an event.

In the latest edition of Car Dealer magazine, you will.

It is not clear if the bloke who took a new Hyundai i10 to the banger racing circuit was a dealer, but what’s he’s done to it is a sight not for the faint hearted. The bumpers have come off, the headlights disappeared. It is not clear if some of the components were removed prior to the race but nevertheless that car looks like it was run over by a tank.

You have to see this to believe it. The owner says wind and gradient could have played a role. He says it is a stock i10 with no upgrades. The only way to verify this is to head to the Autobahn and find out.