Hyundai i-Drive: Vishakhapatnam-Kolkata via GQ

Hyundai celebrates record i10 sales with a pan-India drive. 

The i10 has been a staple of Hyundai’s range of small cars for over half a decade, and it is one of the cars that highlight everything that they do best. With its aesthetically pleasing looks, a well-built cabin and oodles of practicality, the i10 showed the world that Hyundai indeed can deliver on quality, style and performance. It’s no surprise, then, the i10 has racked up huge sales not only in India but also overseas, notably in some of the European markets. Hyundai India, in fact, has shipped more than 12 lakh units of the i10 across the globe and to celebrate the sales milestone, the carmaker ran a 25-day long nationwide road trip called ‘i-Drive India’ stretching 9,000 km across the four corners of the country via the Golden Quadrilateral. OnCars India was invited to tag along for the Vishakhapatnam-Kolkata leg.

Besides the mile munching drive, Hyundai India also launched a special edition i-Tech i10 to commemorate the sales milestone. This special edition i10 gets a class-first rear view camera and a new steering-mounted remote for Bluetooth and audio functions. Our car was specifically fitted with a navigation system to provide us with turn-by-turn directions during our 900 km stint behind the wheel. So, after getting to grips with the navigation unit, we took off from Vishakhapatnam and made our way through the beautiful Beach Road on what was a crisp, sunny morning. 

After a leisurely drive alongside the picturesque coastline and through the bustling city streets, we headed out to NH5 which heads North-West from the city and takes you past half of Orissa and straight to Bhubaneswar where our overnight halt was in order. Out on the open road, the nippy little i10 with its 1.2-litre engine packing nearly 80PS of power, has enough gusto to get past slow-moving traffic. But as you would expect, overtaking on the four-laned G-Quad is quite restricted in the little Hyundai as it requires you to squeeze every ounce of horsepower out of the engine to pass oversized trucks that are a common sight. 

By late evening, we entered Bhubaneswar and eventually settled in our overnight halt, not entirely worn-out but at our halfway point nonetheless. The next day, as the sun made its leisurely passage overhead, we left the city behind and headed for Kolkata (or Calcutta, as it is still referred to by many) for the final leg of our drive. A few hours into the journey with our destination still several hundred kilometers away, we decided to cut down the number of scenic stops thereby sticking to the road instead. We headed further North and continued driving until late afternoon, before getting a taste of the local cuisine at a roadside dhaba near Kharagpur – some 130-odd km away from Kolkata.

Post lunch, the kilometers tickled by as we continued to make good progress and soon enough, we found ourselves in the City of Joy, driving in a sea of good-old HM Ambassadors dressed up as taxis. Classic, indeed.

All along the 900 km road trip, the Hyundai i10 made for a great companion, thanks to its solidly built cabin, comfortable interiors and a refined engine. However, I would have liked the ride to be less bouncy as the i10 never felt entirely composed when cruising at triple-digit speeds over slightly undulated surfaces. Also, as is the case with most Hyundais, the steering could do with a little more feedback, as it’s too light for high-speed cruising. Now as you might have figured out by now, I’m only nitpicking here because the fact remains that the i10, after all, is a small city car deigned to fit into the urban landscape with bustling narrow streets and tight parking spaces. The i10, nevertheless, chewed up kilometers with ease and little effort. A true testament to how far Hyundai has come in such a short amount of time.