The covers are fully off Hyundai’s supermini-based Bayon crossover. This high-riding B-segment hatch has been designed to take on cars like the Ford Puma, Volkswagen T-Cross and Nissan Juke, and is expected to cost from around £ 17,000 (€ 23,500) when it lands in showrooms this summer. That’s compared to the similarly sized Kona’s £ 21,060 starting price in the UK.
The name – pronounced Bye-Onn – comes from
the capital of France’s picturesque Basque Country and was chosen to reflect
that this Hyundai was designed specifically with the European market in mind.
If you’re hoping to pick one up at your local Hyundai dealer in Texas you’re
going to be disappointed as it won’t be offered in the US.
And it won’t be venturing off-road either,
at least not intentionally. Strip away the raised ride height, practical black
wheelarch lips and tough-looking front skid-plate and you’re left with a
conventional supermini, but one that offers a little more interior headroom and
luggage space (411 liters). Measuring 4,180mm long and 1,775mm wide with a 2,580mm wheelbase, the Bayon is based on
Hyundai’s small i20 hatchback and isn’t offered with four-wheel drive.
But Hyundai has worked hard to disguise
those origins, integrating some of the bigger Kona’s styling cues to give the
Bayon a much more assertive look. Most obvious are the wafer-thin DRLs
separating the hood from the bumper below, while those arrow-shaped headlights
are echoed in the lamps at the rear.
The interior, on the other hand, is lifted
almost directly from the i20, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. All
versions come with a 10.25-inch digital instrument pack mounted behind the
steering wheel that’s mated to one of two touchscreens on the top of the
dashboard: a basic 8-inch version or a 10.25-inch alternative that includes
navigation.
Bayon buyers get to choose from two
versions of the same 1.0-litre three-cylinder tubocharged engine. The base
option produces 100 PS and 172 Nm, while its bigger brother
bumps power up to 120 PS, though torque remains the same. Both engines
get 48v mild hybrid assistance and come standard with a six-speed manual
transmission that even has rev-matching downshift software, or you can upgrade
to a seven-speed DCT.
Strangely, there’s very little difference
in performance: the 98 bhp manual gets to 100 km/h in 10.7sec, but the 118 bhp car
is only 0.4sec quicker. Even stranger, pair the DCT ‘box with the base engine
and it’ll cost you an entire second in the run to 100 km/h versus the six-speed
car, the two-pedal model needing 11.7sec to reach the marker.
