Excel Dull On Paper But Fun To Drive
The Age
Friday October 28, 1994
IF YOU didn't know the Hyundai Excel was from South Korea, you would as soon as you opened the door. The seat fabric is a smooth and neat blue-grey cloth with cerise and blue geometric graphics in almost exactly the same colors as those on the Korean flag.
In fact, this just-released all-new Excel is the first true all-Korean car. Its predecessor and some current Hyundais all borrowed technology and/or major bits like engines and transmissions from Mitsubishi, but the company in the gloomy southern city of Ulsan now makes its own.
The Excel was the foundation of Hyundai's amazing success in Australia, which since 1986 has gone from an orphan of the Alan Bond empire to the number one passenger-car importer. From the beginning the Excel was flogged as cheap and reliable, and buyers managed to forgive its boring styling, dull finish, average quality and pedestrian performance because they seldom needed to see the inside of a workshop. That car acted like it was terrified of spanners.
The new Excel is the latest arrival in the newly emerged small-car class vacated by the Ford Laser and Toyota Corolla. For our first test of the range I picked what will be the major seller - the $17,000 LX four-door sedan, with 1.5-litre engine and five-speed manual.
LOOKS.
THERE isn't a single body panel carried over from the old car, and the styling is neat and pleasant without being distinctive. In fact, it edges towards blandness. It uses the wraparound ovalised (ellipsoid) headlamps and tail-lamp lenses that are all the styling fad of the moment, a simple grille slot between them. Only a hefty bumper and bold ``mouth" in the front air dam lift it.
The shape lacks real definition, particularly in the darker colors, although the silhouette has a nice low nose and highish boot line about it, but there's no doubt the coupes and hatches are the better looking of the range. The test car was in a vibrant purple that showed off tight panel fits and a lustrous, deep finish. Hyundai is now very close to matching the best Japanese paint.
ACCOMMODATION.
THE seats actually locate better than they look at first, with good under-thigh length. The interior is generally rather grey plastic- moody, lifted by the happy seat fabric. The headlining is a good- quality grey flock material.
It's obviously a car built to a price, as there are six plugged blanks for switches and controls meant for more up-market models. The semi- circular instrument binnacle houses just a speedometer flanked by two needlessly large dials for fuel and engine temperature.
There are reasonable bins in the front doors and a good-sized glovebox, but no centre console. It's all fairly conventional.
However, where the car really shows its newness is in the overall packaging. Headroom is surprisingly good in both front and rear, even for big blokes like me, and rear leg room is not all that dopey either, although the rear seat is flat and a bit on the hard side.
The boot is another pleasant surprise, because while it's not all that wide, it's long and deep, with a very low loading lip and a lid that is cleverly hinged to open almost to the vertical. It will accept a couple of big international-sized suitcases.
And it doesn't take long to discover that the Excel also has a very good driving position - again, helped by well-shaped seats. It doesn't have height-adjustable belts, which is a silly omission these days, and the steering wheel - which has a nasty sticky feel to the rim - adjusts over only a small range. But the driver's relationship with the wheel and the gear lever is remarkably good.
What's also important is the narrowness of the body pillars and the big glass areas, helped by a low window-sill line and quite low cowl (the line at the bottom of the windscreen). You are seeing the road immediately ahead of the wheels, yet when reversing you can pick up the boot edge quite well.
EQUIPMENT.
YOU get the height-adjustable wheel, driver footrest, rear fog light, a goodly set of tools with a can of touch-up paint in its own felt bag in the boot -- and that's it. We are talking basic car here. Even the exterior mirrors are manual-shift, although you do get remote release levers for boot lid and fuel-filler flap, and the rear seat doesn't split or fold down.
However, to its credit this is the cheapest car on the market with a driver airbag as an option, albeit the usual $990 one.
MECHANICALS.
THE 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine, sitting transverse and driving the front wheels, as is almost compulsory in small cars these days, is a little boomer. It runs multi-point fuel injection, which means an injector directly into each cylinder, and three valves per cylinder - two inlet and one exhaust. It ``breathes" very well, because the compression ratio is quite high at 10:1, yet the car is perfectly happy on 92-octane unleaded.
Hyundai tabbed it the Alpha engine; it made its debut in the Excel S- Coupe but is really into its second generation. It really delivers, producing 65 healthy kilowatts at a peak of 5500 rpm but spinning well beyond that, and the maximum torque arrives bang in the middle where it's needed at 3500 rpm.
The five-speed transmission is Hyundai's own, and is fairly straightforward, running a slightly overdrive fifth gear yet a shortish final drive ratio for better low-end acceleration.
The suspension is the usual MacPherson strut and coils at the front, with a stabiliser bar, but the rear is a lot more enterprising, with dual links with small coil springs offset to give better control of dive and squat under braking and acceleration.
The new car has gone to bigger wheels and tyres than its predecessor, aiming for a better ride and sharper steering. The steering is is power-assisted rack and pinion, brakes ventilated front discs that are bigger than usual for a car this size, but with smallish rear drums.
PERFORMANCE.
SO THE formula is pretty much the standard approach of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). It's basic, reliable (warranty is three years/100,000 kilometres), and one look under the bonnet tells you that; the bay is super-tidy, making the engine very accessible.
It all looks pretty boring on paper. But then comes the real surprise.
This is a great little car to drive. The steering is feather-light, and your first impression is: ``Oh dear, there goes all the road feel", but it's entirely the opposite. It's pin-accurate and an absolute piece of cake to whip into and out of parking spots, with a tight turning circle, yet, given the limitations of the unhappy tyres, has first-class ``swervability", say through roundabouts or dodging suicidal cyclists.
The engine hauls like an enthusiastic puppy, but is smooth and willing and never raucous; it feels unburstable. Unhappily, the road test car's gearbox displayed a stubborn reluctance to make the first-second shift without graunching, but my guess is that's only clutch adjustment. (While we're at it, I should say that Hyundai has retained that idiosyncracy developed for the lawyer-happy US market which demands you depress the clutch before the ignition will fire.) But because of the good torque band and perky engine response, it will lug happily away in almost any gear, so you're not rowing it along on the lever.
The Excel has excellent balance, and quite a supple ride, striding purposefully over rail crossings and speed humps. In fact, the suspension, steering and handling all combine to overcome the ordinary Korean-made Hankook rubber. The tyres are noisy as all get-out, and aren't happy in the wet.
What also give the Excel its snappy performance is quite a low drag factor of 0.31, which is about where the European performance cars were eight or nine years ago; the best are now down to around 0.29.
Thus it is commendably free of wind noise at 100-110 kmh cruising speeds, and there are none of the silly little squeaks and rattles normally found in small interiors; it does feel solidly made.
It's a very interesting car. There's nothing dramatic about it, but it has happy road performance that belies the ordinariness to which it seems to aspire. ``Sensible" is probably the best word to apply to it, but yes, I'd add ``fun". And it's no more expensive that the old trudger it replaces.
STORY IN FIGURES.
PRICE: $16,990 plus on-road costs.
ENGINE: In-line four-cylinder, transversely mounted, of 1495cm3, with multi-point fuel injection, single overhead camshaft, three valves per cylinder; 65 kW at 5500 rpm, 131 Nm at 3500 rpm. Compression ratio 10:1, recommended fuel, normal ULP.
TRANSMISSION: Front-wheel drive, with five-speed manual gearbox. Final drive ratio 3.842:1.
SUSPENSION: Front: MacPherson strut/coil with stabiliser bar; rear: struts with lateral and trailing links and coils, stabiliser bar.
BRAKES: Front 242mm ventilated disc, rear 180mm drum.
STEERING: Power-assisted rack-and-pinion, 2.9 turns lock-to-lock, turning circle 9.7 metres.
WHEELS AND TYRES: 5.0-inch x 13 steel rims, with 175/70R13 Hankook 884 tyres.
PERFORMANCE: Top speed N/A, standing 400 metres 18.22 secs, 0-100 kmh 12.44 secs. Fuel consumption 7.7 l/100 km, fuel tank capacity 45 litres.
WARRANTY: Three years/100,000 km.
RIVALS (all four-door sedans): Daihatsu Charade 1.5 SI, Ford Festiva 1.3 GLi, Holden Barina 1.4 Swing, Mazda 1.5 121, Suzuki Swift 1.3 GL, Daewoo 1.5i.
© 1994 The Age