As an imaginative little boy growing up in the suburbs of Melbourne, one of my favourite toys was a worn, paint-chipped silver 1:18 scale model F-16 jet fighter,
made of actual metal, not some plastic junk, and it would’ve had a million-hours service life, I loved it so much.
Then I saw Top Gun for the first time.Tony Scott’s masterful cinematography, the Maverick attitude, and of course Danger Zone.
Before automobiles, I was in love with planes (and trains), and only recently has that feeling been challenged … by this.
It happened the day Hyundai sent out that press release with the first official shots of the i30 N Fastback.
And yes, to the car buff paying attention, that nomenclature is written in the wrong order.
Deliberately.
See, this car is not an i30 Fastback given the N-treatment.
It’s all the MMA-style throat-kicking force an i30 N offers, but given the backside of Jennifer Connelly.
The i30 N has been “Fastbacked” in the same way Top Gun Maverick has been given the full Tom Cruise treatment of no green-screen and actually teaching actors to fly and pilots to act.
There hasn’t been a movie in years I’ve wanted to see so badly, and likewise there isn’t a car on sale today I want as much as the Fastback.
Hyundai had no right putting so much R&D into the N programme and putting performance driving within affordable reach of normal people.
And by “normal people” I mean those who actually buy something they can afford and/or have money for.Not those committing themselves to a hot car and scaling a mountain of interest repayments anchored by financial instability.
The Fastback N drives like a jet fighter too.
There’s absolutely zero hesitation between your right foot, the intake, combustion process, the relentlessness of the prop shafts and force-fed accumulation of speed and unwavering mechanical grip. It’s intoxicating.
Being a manual and not having the hip of a 68-year-old, I could happily bear the burden of disengaging and re-engaging the flywheel to the gearbox, in the same way Maverick doesn’t need a drone to do his job, nor an IntelCore processor to race a plane down a runway on his motorcycle.He doesn’t even need an app to pick up Jennifer Connelly.
Fire up the Fastback and its snarls.Not in some ostentatious V8 kinda way.With a pent-up, vengeful gleam in its headlights that wants to thump Golf GTIs and Audi RS4s into pant-wetting, apologetic submission for all those years of smugness.
Hyundai honouring track-friendly warranties and promising brakes that don’t die is like Lockheed Martin offering cash-back on the F-16’s Harpoon anti-ship missiles that hit the wrong target.
The brilliant e-diff gives you so much confidence in every bend where you might’ve dabbed the brakes on your favourite, familiar piece of road, you can simply lift ever-so-slightly and immediate get back on the power.
The Fastback shape and length gives you the sensation of inconsequential acceleration delivered by an unstoppable afterburner-like twin-scroll turbocharged engine.
And much like an F-16, if you’re not paying attention, such is the accessibility of the N’s 202kW and 378Nm of overboosting performance, you can very easily cock it up at any point between 1750 and 4200rpm where all that grunt is on tap.
It’s in this white-knuckled moment of forward motion when you’re perfectly within your right to yell “kick the tyres and light the fires!” Even while taking a work call.
And there’s no need for your special blend of kerosene-based aviation fuel (or 98 premium in the case of the N), the Fastback is quite happy on 95RON.
Some would cry sacrilege at the idea of comparing a Hyundai to one of the longest-serving jet fighters in history (45 years, FYI).However, with the editor-in-chief of Carsales, Mike Sinclair, regularly fanging around Winton in an old Excel, and spending many weekends of year 12 watching amateur wannabe rally drivers throw old Hyundais around the local hillclimb track, it’s less shocking than you might think.
The fact Hyundai has built an off-the-shelf trackday weapon you can embarrass unsuspecting Mustang drivers with, my analogy stands.
Any protest is to fail in understanding the term “fit for purpose”.
The F-16 was considered a no-frills fighter jet, with a number of strong attributes like speed, firepower and agility.
F-16 wasn’t as technical as the F-22, but the latter became the most expensive (and therefore mired) jet ever made.
Like the i30 N Fastback, the F-16 is such an affordable performance machine, it offers the driving thrills once only afforded to thirsty V8 muscle cars and pricey sports cars.
Anybody who can afford a Mustang, GTI or RS4, can still have the fun of a hardcore racer but with civilised, practical qualities of a mid-spec sedan.
With change.
This doesn’t mean either the Fastback (or F-16) is inferior, it’s just better suited for the open roads (or skies), and reverse-parallel parking I do weekly.
A supercharged ’Stang or projectile Porsche would be wasted talent.
I’ll always have the memories of my toy fighter jet, soaring around the backyard.
But the chance of parking an i30N Fastback on the deck of HMAS Murray is much more realistic.
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