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Written by Craig Jamieson
The snow spray you see above is actually quite a big motoring moment. That"s right it"s finally (nearly) here: Hyundai"s first properly hot hatch is just a few months away. Yes, it"s been a long time coming, but Hyundai, as you might expect, wants to get it right the first time, when the i30 N is launched later this year. So, to make sure that the i30 N has a fighting chance in the new hot hatch arms race, they"ve enlisted none other than WRC racer Thierry Neuville to test its abilities on a frozen lake in Lapland. Hey, you never know when that might happen to you. The lake in question is one of many that dot the area around a small town called Arjeplog (pronounced a little bit like Aria-ploog"), which is in a rather northern part of Sweden, well into Lapland and just 50km shy of the Arctic Circle. The tiny town of about 2000 swells every winter, as an influx of engineers from major companies like Mercedes, Jaguar Land Rover and BMW descend on the town to conduct cold-weather torture tests on their upcoming cars. And when we say torture test, we don"t say it lightly temperatures can easily drop to -30 C and have been known to sink as low as -40 C. Despite the depth of the lakes up to 200m in places ice forms across the top in sheets up to a metre thick. And that"s where the fun er, sorry, serious testing takes place.
Date written: 15 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 7073
The snow spray you see above is actually quite a big motoring moment. That"s right it"s finally (nearly) here: Hyundai"s first properly hot hatch is just a few months away. Yes, it"s been a long time coming, but Hyundai, as you might expect, wants to get it right the first time, when the i30 N is launched later this year. So, to make sure that the i30 N has a fighting chance in the new hot hatch arms race, they"ve enlisted none other than WRC racer Thierry Neuville to test its abilities on a frozen lake in Lapland. Hey, you never know when that might happen to you. The lake in question is one of many that dot the area around a small town called Arjeplog (pronounced a little bit like Aria-ploog"), which is in a rather northern part of Sweden, well into Lapland and just 50km shy of the Arctic Circle. The tiny town of about 2000 swells every winter, as an influx of engineers from major companies like Mercedes, Jaguar Land Rover and BMW descend on the town to conduct cold-weather torture tests on their upcoming cars. And when we say torture test, we don"t say it lightly temperatures can easily drop to -30 C and have been known to sink as low as -40 C. Despite the depth of the lakes up to 200m in places ice forms across the top in sheets up to a metre thick. And that"s where the fun er, sorry, serious testing takes place.
Date written: 15 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 7073
