Facing page:
Ergonomically spot on,
the Venue offers a great
driving position and
equally good comfortYUNDAI COULD NOT HAVE
chosen a better time to launch the
Venue. With elections done and a
clear mandate in the bag, positive
sentiment should return to the
economy spurring one of the biggest engines of
growth, the automotive industry. They could not
have chosen a better venue too, the North East,
an area that is far from well explored but with
some great driving roads, spectacular scenery
and surprisingly good network even when we
were out looking for rhinos, letting us use all the
connectivity features.
That’s the big talking point on the Venue and the
Blue Link app does things we’ve not experienced
on a car of this or even thrice the price. Once we'd
done with the early morning drive to the Pobitora
wildlife scantuary outside of Guwahati, spotting
the one horned rhino from the road itself (the
scantuary is shut during the rains), we headed off
to Shillong on the most interesting dual carriage
road you will find in the country. Most divided
highways are arrow-straight with the odd cornerthrown in but NH6 twists and turns up and down
the hills for 100-odd kilometres and even though
you have traffic coming at you in places (as you
have everywhere in the country) the scenery,
the surface, the corners of varying degrees and
difficulty levels, it is all an absolute joy.
First, though, we play around with the Blue Link
that, via the app on the mobile phone, allows you
to set the air-con temperature so the car is nice
and cool before you step in. This is something you
can only do on the automatic. You can unlock the
doors via the app but an option to crack open the
windows so hot air can get out would have been
nice. What else does Blue Link offer? You get
location tracking so you know where you or your
driver/wife/kid has parked the car. You can geo-
fence it so your kid can’t sneak it off into the hills.
If it crosses a set speed you’ll be alerted, it’ll tell
you when it needs to be serviced, you can speak
to the concierge to assist you if you’re stranded
by the roadside and the concierge will even push
maps to your car if you couldn’t be bothered to
input it on the eight-inch touchscreen. There’s a102 http://www.evoIndia.com | July 2018
HYUNDAI VENUE