• More space than the previous Hyundai i20
• Spacious rear seats…
• But the boot is fairly average

How much space is there?

The new Hyundai i20 is 30mm wider than the car it replaces, and its wheelbase (the distance between the front and rear axles) is 10mm longer. The upshot of these changes is that there’s more shoulder and leg room for passengers. Now, there’s more than enough space for four six-foot adults, which is a vast improvement over the old model and competitive with the best superminis on sale.

Storage is good too. Yes, the front door bins aren’t exactly huge, but the glovebox is a good size and you get some cubbies next to the gear lever that are handy for storing loose change or keys. The central tray on the dashboard is also plenty big enough for a smartphone – and, on higher spec models, it comes equipped with a wireless charging pad.

Boot space and storage

Hyundai’s engineers have done well with the i20’s packaging. In addition to making some more space for occupants, they’ve increased the size of the car’s boot from 326 litres to 352 litres. For a little perspective, the Fiesta’s boot can only carry 292 litres.

The boot floor is adjustable and can be raised to reduce the loading lip. Buyers also get a 60:40 split-folding rear bench which offers some flexibility when you need to carry cargo and passengers. Previously mild-hybrid versions of the i20 had a smaller boot because of space being taken up by the battery, but this is no longer a worry now it’s no longer sold in new examples of this supermini.

Is it easy to park?

Very. Every version of the Hyundai i20 comes with parking sensors and a reversing camera as standard, so you haven’t really got an excuse if you reverse it into a bollard in a car park. It needs the technology though, because the body sweeps upwards towards the rear, which means the rear window is quite small.

There’s plenty of glass everywhere else, though – and the i20’s footprint is dinky enough for you to confidently manoeuvre it around on intuition. The door mirrors are wide, which helps avoid damaging the alloys when parking next to tall kerbs, though they do create quite a lot of wind noise at higher speeds.

Safety

• Four-star Euro NCAP safety rating shared with the Hyundai Bayon 
• Plenty of standard safety technology
• Six airbags and two Isofix points

Hyundai says the i20 has the “most comprehensive” safety package of any supermini on sale today. And, to be fair to the company’s rather bold claims, the i20 does feature a lot of technology as standard. 

Hyundai’s suite of SmartSense safety equipment is fitted as standard to every model in the line-up. The package includes lane-keeping assist, autonomous emergency braking, driver attention alert, high beam assist and an intelligent speed limit function. Blind spot monitoring is also included on top-spec Ultimate cars. 

The technology works well – if not a little too well. We found the lane-keeping assist setting a little too intrusive. It was particularly keen on keeping the car in its lane on narrow country roads which, given the usual flora poking out of the verge, isn’t always the best option. A simple hold of a button on the steering wheel does disable the feature, though. 

Though the i20 has never been tested by Euro NCAP, the supermini shares ratings with the Hyundai Bayon, a closely related compact crossover, which scored a four-star rating. Euro NCAP said ‘the two cars can be considered identical as far as safety is concerned’.