The Hyundai Kona is a car clearly designed to sell on design. It's not that rewarding to drive, thanks to lifeless steering and a 1.0-litre engine that isn't as flexible as the small units in some of the car's rivals. The ride is unsettled on the larger wheels that come on many versions, and there's not as much passenger or luggage space on board as you'll find in some competitors. There's an EV version coming that could be a standout car in the class; as it stands, though, the Kona is in the middle of the pack if you're after an alternative to a Nissan Juke or Renault Captur.
We're not about to deliver a verdict on how the Kona looks; that's for customers to decide. But there's no doubt that the car's exterior styling is going to split opinion. Hyundai is counting on it, in fact, because there's nothing worse in the image-conscious small SUV market than having a car that fails to provoke a reaction.
The Kona certainly errs towards the 'rugged' end of the baby SUV market. It has slim, aggressive-looking headlights, complex body surfacing with plenty of creases, and swathes of black plastic around the wheelarches to give it at least the look of something that could go off road.
There is a basic flat paint scheme, but the vast majority of buyers will pay the extra to go for one of the metallic or 'metallic pearl' finishes. Hyundai is dividing the colours into two groups - 'Neutral', which includes white and silver, and 'Vivid', which brings a strong red and blue, plus a lime-green shade that's called 'Acid Yellow'. The Vivid shades also come with a contrast roof colour.
The entry-level version of the Kona gets 16in alloy wheels, while SE models step this up to 17-inchers. Everything above that gets 18in rims, which look suitably chunky under the plastic-clad arches.
Inside, it's a far more conventional affair. True, there's the odd flourish - a little bit of body-coloured surround on the dashboard, and body-coloured seat belts (they can look garish if you've gone for Acid Yellow, for example). But in the most part, the Kona's cabin could be any other Hyundai.
That's particularly true on the facia, which mixes conventional dials with, on all but the entry-level edition, a colour touchscreen display that's mounted high up in the centre of the dashboard. It all makes perfect functional sense, but it's also relatively short on inspiration - a match, in many ways, for the ultra-conservative cabin of the SEAT Arona.
The quality of the materials is harder to fault; there are soft-touch fabrics in more of the door lining than you'll find in lots of the Kona's rivals, and you'll have to look hard to find some really scratchy plastic. The Hyundai feels like it's absolutely on the money in this area, at least.
Go far enough up the range and you'll get some extra tech to make the front cabin feel a teeny bit more special; there's a head-up display, for example, which is still a relatively rare feature in this class.
The rest of the controls are easy to access, with simple switches for the heating and ventilation, and other features on higher-end models, such as the heated and cooled seats, controlled via buttons at either side of the gear stick.
Sat-nav, stereo and infotainment
The entry-level Kona, S trim, gets an infotainment system so basic that we haven't even been allowed anywhere near it yet. It's a monochrome LCD display-based set-up, although it does at least include DAB and Bluetooth.
SE editions get a seven-inch colour touchscreen system, incorporating plenty of phone connectivity with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The system is slick enough and the processing power behind it is quick to respond to inputs.
Premium, Premium SE and Premium GT models get an uprated system with an eight-inch display and an eight-speaker KRELL audio set-up. It also includes navigation, but the software itself isn't as clear as the phone navigation that you can access through Android and Apple - so we wouldn't upgrade for this feature alone.
Premium SE and GT models also bring a head-up display as standard; it's a comparative rarity for the class, and Hyundai's system is one of the largest on the market, with information being projected onto an eight-inch screen beyond the instrument binnacle.
The dashboard contains an aux-in and a single USB socket at the bottom of the centre console; this is welcome enough, but we'd have preferred to see a second USB slot instead of the pair of 12V sockets that are positioned in the same place.
We haven't really seen a small SUV that's genuinely involving to drive - and the Kona doesn't come close to bucking this trend. It has few vices, admittedly, but there is precious little scope for enjoyment either.
The 1.0 engine has just about enough grunt for most everyday situations, although you'll need to keep an eye on the rev-counter if you're about to attempt overtaking. That's because the three-cylinder turbocharged engine has a pretty narrow power band; Hyundai claims peak torque between 1,500rpm and 4,000rpm, but it feels like it starts about 700rpm higher than that.
Drop out of this area and you'll soon find yourself becoming impatient as you wait for the motor to spin up to its best potential again. Other three-cylinder units on the market are a bit more forgiving - notably Citroen's and Peugeot's excellent 1.2 PureTech.
The Kona’s transmission (a six-speed manual on all but the 1.6 version) isn’t the slickest either, but it’s quick enough as long as you’re positive with shifts. The squared-off gear knob doesn’t sit particularly easily in the hand, though.
The chassis is set up to understeer at anything approaching its limit, and it does - although in fairness, the front end hangs on gamely unless you really throw it at a corner. This in itself is harder to do than it should be, because the steering - presumably calibrated in the name of ‘sportiness’ - is unusually heavy for a car of this type.
The car stays pretty flat in corners, but the trade-off for this is a brittle ride on all but smooth surfaces; the rear end jolts over potholes and expansion joints, and the Kona never quite settles down over the sort of patchwork tarmac that you tend to find at the edges of plenty of British roads.
Tyre size will play a part in this, of course. S and SE models come with 16in and 17in wheels respectively, and we'd strongly recommend you ask for a back-to-back test before committing to the 18in items that come with Premium, Premium SE and Premium GT versions.
At least the Kona’s pretty quiet once it’s up to speed, as the characterful three-cylinder note fades away. Wind noise seems well isolated, too, so there’s not much of a rush from around the side mirrors.
The 1.6 T-GDi model gets a different chassis set-up, with more complex rear suspension - and this goes some way towards negating the harsher experience of its 18in wheels. You can definitely tell that there's something more sophisticated at the back end. This car's dual-clutch gearbox (the only automatic Kona on offer, at the moment) isn't too bad, either, delivering only rare jerky shifts at low speeds around town.
The 1.6 engine has more punch too, of course - plenty for a car of this size, in fact.
Engines
The Kona comes with a choice of engines - although in truth, the vast majority of customers will end up in the more modest of the pair. It's a turbocharged 1.0-litre three-cylinder motor, producing 118bhp and 175Nm of torque.
On the whole, this engine is punchy enough for a car like the Kona. But in practice, we find its powerband a little narrow - and it's quick to punish you with sluggish progress if you allow the revs to dip much below 2,000rpm.
You can easily hear that it's a three-cylinder engine when it's being revved, thanks to the characteristic thrum, but at a steady cruise the 1.0 drifts nicely into the background.
The other engine is a turbocharged 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine, with 175bhp and 265Nm. This feels an altogether more grown-up offering, with real pace (0-62mph in under eight seconds) and plenty of mid-range punch when you need it.
It's available only with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive, though - and restricted to the most expensive trim level. Small wonder that Hyundai reckons this will account for no more than two percent of all Kona sales in the UK.
There's no diesel Kona yet, incidentally, but a 1.6-litre version with around 113bhp is expected in the first half of 2018 - a few months before an all-electric version of the car lands in UK showrooms.
The Kona features an intriguing mix of 'old' and new. Its turbocharged petrol engines are relatively proven units from elsewhere in the company's line-up, but the mechanical components underneath them - the chassis, in other words - is entirely new and, for the time being at least, bespoke to this car.
Even so, we'd expect that the latest design and construction techniques should deliver respectable reliability - especially when the known quantities of the engines and transmissions are taken into account.
The Kona's too new to have featured in our Driver Power survey, but Hyundai as a brand finished 10th in the most recent data. That was a decent placing - and well clear of the manufacturers of some of the Kona's key rivals, notably Citroen. But it was also behind the likes of SEAT and Kia, who both now have competitors for this car.
The Kona hasn't been tested yet by Euro NCAP, but Hyundai will be targeting a full five-star rating. All Konas get front, front side and curtain airbags, driver attention alert, lane-keep assist and hill-start assist control.
Some of the more expensive editions include rear cross-traffic alert and the range-topping Premium GT model gets a safety pack that brings pedestrian recognition as part of an autonomous emergency braking system. It's good to see, too, that this top-line feature is available as an option, even on the most basic S trim level.
Warranty
Hyundai has one of the strongest warranty packages on the market, and the Kona gets the same level of cover as any of the Korean brand's other offerings. That means a five-year warranty with unlimited mileage; only Kia's seven-year deal offers a longer period of cover.
Hyundai's package also includes five years of annual vehicle health checks, five years of roadside assistance, and a 12-year anti-perforation warranty.
Servicing
Hyundai hasn't released servicing costs for the Kona yet. However, we'd expect the car to be included on the company's fixed-price servicing deal, which can run over two, three or five years, and includes the capacity for the cost to be split into monthly payments.
The petrol Konas should fall into the same bracket as the likes of the i20 and i30 - so a three-year deal would cost around £500. That's not the cheapest in the industry, but it is a good way of budgeting your running costs during a typical three-year ownership period.
The level of practicality in the Kona illustrates just how quickly the small SUV market is developing. When Hyundai started work on its small SUV, it presumably benchmarked cars like the Nissan Juke and Renault Captur for passenger space and boot capacity.
Compared with these cars, then, the Kona doesn't do badly. But the game has clearly moved on in the meantime, because Hyundai's offering feels less capable of dealing with family life than, say, the latest Citroen C3 Aircross.
Kona S models have the biggest boot, because they do without a spacesaver spare wheel (they get tyre sealant instead). But even so, the capacity of 361 litres is still some way adrift of the 400 litres in a SEAT Arona - and the C3 Aircross can deliver up to 120 litres more than that again.
This gap widens when you go to SE and above in the Kona range, of course; these versions offer just 334 litres, which is barely any more than many modern superminis. Fold the rear seats down and you get 1,143 litres (S) or 1,116 litres (everything else) - no better than respectable. There are no clever boot tricks like a variable-height floor or dividers, either.
Many buyers won't be put off by this relative shortage of versatility, of course - but the Kona doesn't quite feel like a vehicle that could cope with the lifestyle of a small family.
There's plenty of room in the front cabin for a couple of grown-ups, and they shouldn't have any problems with headroom. But if there's a pair of six-footers up front, the rear cabin looks a little bit tight for knee and legroom. Again, some of the Kona's likely rivals are considerably more versatile.
Size
The Kona is 4,165mm long, 1,800mm wide (2,070 including mirrors) and up to 1,568mm high, depending on which wheel size you opt for. By comparison, the firm's i20 supermini is about 13cm shorter and 6cm narrower.
The Kona is a centimetre longer than the C3 Aircross, as well as being a little wider. But it's lower, even when fitted with 18in wheels.
Leg room, head room & passenger space
The Kona is a nominal five-seater, of course, but it's still fundamentally a supermini-sized cabin - and you should factor that in if you regularly need to carry four adults. There's plenty of space up front for six-footers, but those in the back seats may complain about a shortage of leg and kneeroom on longer journeys.
Boot
The Kona's boot is no better than average in a class that's fast developing to offer genuine small family cars. In anything other than S spec (so with a spacesaver wheel), the boot capacity is only 334 litres; that's a world away from the likes of the C3 Aircross, which can offer up to 520 litres when its trick rear seats are pushed fully forward.
Hyundai believes that it can attract downsizers and hip, trendy young families into the Kona. And it's being pretty bold with the pricing as a result.
The figures are pitched against other small SUVs instead of Hyundai's other small cars, like the i20 or even the i30, so they start at around the same level as the SEAT Arona's. That means they're higher than, say, the C3 Aircross's entry point - but that most basic Citroen is so basic that it's almost an irrelevance. Let's just say that the Kona is in the ballpark as far as its mainstream variants go.
There are a few anomalies in the Hyundai's fuel efficiency that you need to watch out for. The 1.0 version's official economy and CO2 figures start at 54.3mpg and 117g/km - but these only apply to the most basic S trim, which gets a (much lighter) can of tyre sealant instead of a spare wheel, and runs on 16in tyres.
The rest of the 1.0 line-up - complete with spacesaver and either 17in or 18in wheels - manages official figures of 52.3mpg and 125g/km. These are some way adrift of the likes of the C3 Aircross and Arona, which feature a range of powerplants below 120g/km. The Citroen offers a diesel option, too, that gets to 70mpg and 104g/km.
The higher-powered Kona is worse again, because while it's an efficient enough engine, it's paired up with a dual-clutch auto gearbox and four-wheel drive. It only returns official figures of 42.2mpg and 153g/km - some way adrift of the admittedly less powerful auto C3 Aircross (126g/km) and DSG auto Arona (113g/km).
Indeed, the Hyundai's fuel efficiency looks more in line with that of established but relatively old small SUVs like the Juke and Captur - highlighting how the class is moving on quickly.
The Kona could well strike back on this front in the second half of 2018, though, when Hyundai makes use of the car's bespoke platform to introduce an all-electric version. The firm is targeting a full-battery range of around 240 miles, which would make the car one of the more capable small EVs on the market.
Insurance groups
Hyundai hasn't confirmed any insurance groups for the Kona yet. We'd expect it to cost more than the likes of the i20, though, because of the car's positioning as a more premium product, higher up the range.
Depreciation
It's still a bit too early to get concrete figures on how well the Kona is expected to retain its value. But it's worth pointing out that as a trend, small SUVs are generally being given more promising figures than conventional superminis and, in particular, small MPVs.
As a general guide, we'd expect the entry-level S edition and the range-topping Premium GT to have the weakest resale values, because the most extreme ends of a model range tend to perform that way.
Much will depend on what Hyundai does on finance - and whether the firm offers deposit contribution deals.
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