Overview

Should you buy the Hyundai Bayon?

That depends what you’re looking for in a small SUV. If all you want is something that’s cheap and stylish, the Hyundai Bayon could be right up your street. But its appeal quickly evaporates the second you ask it to show some greater character depth.

It isn’t that fun to drive, its cabin isn’t particularly plush, it has an average safety rating for its class, it’s lacking the latest technology (such as wireless phone mirroring) and, now that Hyundai has discontinued its mild hybrid petrol engine, it isn’t especially fuel efficient.

If you’re looking for a good all-round small SUV, we think the Ford Puma and Renault Captur are more appealing, even if you do need to spend more money to have one on your drive. Alternatively, if you’re specifically looking for something that doesn’t have any hybrid assistance, why not consider the Parkers award-winning Skoda Kamiq?

What is it?

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The Hyundai Bayon is a classic niche-filling exercise. Hyundai needed a small SUV to rival the incredibly popular Ford Puma – and, like Ford, it had a reliable set of mechanicals from its supermini on which to build one.

So, Hyundai followed in Ford’s footsteps and built an SUV on the same underpinnings as the i20. Like the Puma, it shares its engines and gearboxes with its donor car, but it’s bigger in every direction than the supermini on which it’s based.

We like the i20 – so this should be great. But the Bayon has some incredibly appealing rivals, such as the Renault Captur, Skoda Kamiq and the larger but cheaper Dacia Duster. So, are its funky styling and spacious cabin good enough to make you want one?

To try and convince you, Hyundai facelifted the Bayon in 2024. Sadly, the car lost its mild hybrid powertrains in the process, but it gained a redesigned front end that shares the same sort of full-width light bar as the larger Hyundai Kona Electric.

And even though it isn’t quite as efficient as it was, the simplified range has made the Bayon an even easier car to buy. Now, it’s only available with one engine, two gearboxes and three trim levels. The engine is a 100hp 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol, the gearboxes are either a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed automatic and the trims are called Advance, Premium and Ultimate.

The Advance trim comes as standard with manual 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, rear parking sensors, air conditioning, a rear-view camera and a 10.25-inch infotainment system with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Premium models build on this specification with 17-inch alloy wheels, climate control, front parking sensors, automatic windscreen wipers, a heated steering wheel, heated front seats, an auto-dimming rear-view mirror and a USB-C port for the rear (which most modern parents will tell you is handy for keeping kids entertained on long trips).

The range-topping Ultimate model gets all the kit Hyundai could cram into the space. That includes a Bose stereo, keyless go, a wireless smartphone charger and a sunroof.

Over the next few pages, we’ll review each aspect of the Hyundai Bayon, exploring its practicality, interior quality, technology, driving experience and running costs before offering our final verdict. If you’d like to learn more about how we reached our verdict on the Bayon, check out our how we test cars explainer page.