Another day, another hire car.  This one happens to be free, courtesy of my AA cover, following a disastrous breakdown on the M11 (see here.)  At some point late in the evening I was pitched into this car and left to sort out the controls in order to drive back to await my car being towed away from Bishop Stortford services.

Some people have a justifiable fear of the unknown when it comes to cars, since we all form a very personal relationship with our car.  We know its little ways, where to find all the right knobs and switches, how to set it up with the right seat and mirror position, the air-conditioning just so, the radio settings spot on.

When placed in an alien vehicle (particularly at night) we feel totally out of place, lost beyond all measure.  We hunt for familiar controls in unfamiliar places, peer at screens and dials loaded with more information than we can possibly cope with in the hope of finding clues.  But at least the configuration is not too different: pedals are still set up the same way, gears operate in pretty much the same way, steering is steering.  All told it doesn’t take us too long to adapt and find our way around, while acclimatising to the subtly different characteristics of our new travelling companion.

At first sight this one was unexpected. The exterior design, roughly in station wagon format, comes with surprisingly dashing eye-catching lines.  Sexier than your average estate car, for sure, but then design cues have moved on considerably since your dad bought a car with hollowed-out interior designed for carrying grandfather clocks and looking like a flattened box.  This is one seriously attractive motor.

Then comes the interior.  Once you’ve figured out how to expose the key from its fob and into which hole it should be inserted, you’re greeted by one of those irritating chimes and a bank of lights worthy of an Airbus flight deck.  Everywhere you look there are knobs and switches, screens and readouts, which, perforce of necessity, I found my way around within the first 20 minutes of driving.

Next I had to remember that this car is a more recent model than mine, so inevitably it was equipped with a host of features to boost fuel economy and be kinder to the environment.  This model has something called Blue Drive technology which further cuts emissions, though whether this is value for money from the driver’s selfish perspective is not altogether clear.  Chief among these, disconcerting if you’ve never experienced it, is the stop/start feature, whereby your engine stops for a minute or so when you are in neutral with the handbrake on.

Come to think of it, the will-it-won’t-it-switch-off electronic handbrake (you have to put on your seatbelt before it will release) rather than a full-blown anchor of old is also a new fangled feature that takes some getting used to if you aren’t familiar.  Now you get all the toys thrown in for good measure, the stuff that only used to be provided on top line cars and/or top line marques: reversing cameras, infra red wipers, auto dip light settings, cruise (though not the adaptive cruise I have fitted on my motor), electric seat controls, you get the picture.

Meanwhile, the interior is also roomy, with a touch of the tardises about it.  The seats seem moderately comfortable, even if the fabric material would probably not survive untainted for too long in the hands of my kids.  Some of the plastics look cheap and shiny, but overall there is no doubt the sophistication of car fitting has come on leaps and bounds, not least in the hands of manufacturers who would once have been spoken of as cheap and nasty.

More than this, the Hyundai seems thoughtfully designed, well screwed together.  Indeed in design, quality, stability, dynamics and, presumably, reliability, it seems a credit to the Korean motor industry, who have learned much from their Japanese near-neighbours.  The fact that Hyundai offers a 5-year warranty speaks volumes, all the more so when you consider that not too long ago Mercedes were offering just one year.

So to the driving.  A 1.7 litre diesel engine is never going to measure up to the brilliant straight-six 3 litre Beamer engine, but it’s not bad.  I noticed the difference when accelerating to overtake, but by and large this model cruises moderately well and is nippy in average driving conditions, and let’s face it – torque at low speeds is where you need it most, to give some oomph from the lights.

On the road the car seems solid, the steering light and crisp.  Not the most nimble car I’ve ever driven, but sufficiently agile to cope with Essex roads.  The driving position, once adjusted by automated controls, suited my height and build just fine.  The 6-speed manual gearbox is pretty smooth, and it’s nice to see a good solid lever for applying reverse gear, a bugbear applicable to many more expensive motors.  Some reviews talk of the diesel clatter, though I never found it intrusive.  Altogether quite a pleasant car to drive – not the best but far from the worst, and well removed from the lemons and donkeys of old.

Thank you Hyundai for disabusing me of the myth that Korean cars are not very pleasant.  Not sure I would necessarily choose to buy one, but I’d say anyone looking for a moderately cool and cheap to run estate car could do much worse.