I have a very good friend now living in Brittany in France. She has three children, her partner also has three so when they came to visit in April and tried to hire a car for them all plus their luggage, they struggled ending up having to hire two cars.
Well now they can visit any time and hire only one car. For the new Hyundai i800 is the ultimate in people carriers having eight full sized seats and copious amounts of room for their entire luggage without compromising on interior space.
The i800 comes on just one variant at the moment that of the 2.5 litre CRDi diesel mated to the Style trim costing £19,495 with no hidden optional extras to tempt you with apart from metallic paint at £400. Later this year, Hyundai intend to add lower power and lower specification models for the more cost conscious family.
There is really no other people carrier on the market that can rival the i800 on price apart from vans and then they lack the impressive list of standard equipment, which adorns the i800.
However in order to facilitate eight seats and space for luggage, the i800 does share van like exterior characteristics and is rather large. I doubt if the i800 will win any prizes in a beauty contest yet every effort has been made to distinguish it from a van such as 16 inch alloy wheels, large attractive light clusters, two toned side mouldings and bumpers plus colour coded door handles and manually folding door mirrors.
Hoisting up literally into the heated drivers seat I was so high up meaning I had a superb command of the road ahead. Thankfully I do not suffer from vertigo! The tilt adjustable steering wheel is refreshingly uncluttered with no fiddly remotes to confuse me. Air conditioning kept everyone chilled with the second and third row having their own controls while we sang to our favourite songs via the radio CD player. Privacy glass meant that other drivers were not distracted by the children should they dare play up.
The i800 is exceptionally practical for large families with numerous storage solutions scattered around the cabin. In fact it has a total of 851 litres of boot space even when loaded with eight passengers that is twice the amount of some estate cars. The best news of all is that you do not have to remove any of the seats. Talking of which the i800 has two large seats in the front with space between should the children want to get into the second row that way. The second row three seats move forward to give the three third row occupants more legroom and they can access this row by simply sliding the second row outer seat forward. All doors have bottle holders in the door pockets while in the front is a dual glove box, dashboard binnacles and low door pockets. Just be careful not to tread into these when exiting the car!
Initially feeling a tad intimidated by such big dimensions and in danger of turning into a van driver, the i800 is surprisingly nimble to manoeuvre into the tight parking bays at the supermarket. This is thanks to the power assisted steering and or course those valuable rear-parking senses. Once in the parking bay, is where the manually sliding doors come into their own as the children clamber out. Thankfully I am quite thin so managed to squeeze out of my door. What really surprised me was the performance of this i800 taking just 14.5 seconds to reach 62 mph and having a top speed of 112 mph. The car really held the speed well and saw off many other surprised motorists on the motorways. This is down to a new 2.5 litre diesel engine, which is intercooled and features a variable geometry turbo. Despite the impressive performance, fuel economy is pretty economical with a combined figure of 33.2 mpg and CO2 emissions falling in at 225g/km putting the i800 into VED band F.
The ride and handling was equally impressive with no roller coaster feel yet being a larger car, early braking is required. Luckily the i800 comes with ABS with Electronic Brakeforce Distribution for safe secure stopping. Enhancing this is ESP that reduces over–steering and under-steering by providing braking forces to the appropriate wheel if necessary. The i800 comes with a five sped manual transmission that occasionally you had to wrestle with and the handbrake was badly placed being so low down inevitably it was not always released fully to which a loud audible warning bell told you – again.
Carrying so many occupants means safety has to be an important issue. The i800 comes with driver and passenger airbags, plus three point seatbelts and height adjustable head restraints for all eight seats. The front belts are height adjustable with pretensioners. The rear sliding doors are fitted with child locks and the middle row has ISOFIX child seat mountings.
In case an accident does occur, the i800 has a four ringed strengthened body with rigid cabin and crush zones, impact absorbing bumpers, side impact intrusion bars and auto unlock on impact to protect all passengers.
Securing the i800 is central locking and alarm thus falls into insurance group 14D.
I can honestly say I cannot think of another car that rivals this i800 for larger families. It may lack high quality materials and finishes but in terms of space, practicality and economy it is an iii all round. For added peace of mind the i800 comes with Hyundai’s five year unlimited mileage warranty.
Size really does matter.
Jackie Violet – Female First