HYUNDAI VENUELeft: Venue can tackle broken village roads with ease with
good ride compliance and no pitch or wallow. Below left:
Air purifier standard on the top end variantssimilar lines to the Polo GT TSI which has always
been the benchmark for small petrol engines,
but step on it and you don’t get the rush of power
that you do in VW’s TSI when it comes on boost.
Hyundai have worked extensively on refinement
and there is next to no turbo lag, the build up of
power is linear and progressive. However, I fear,
Hyundai have made the motor too refined, there
is no kick when the engine comes on boost, no
frenzy of turbo-charged revs. Most customers
will, of course, love the refinement but I’d have
liked the turbo to be a little more pronounced
both in the step up in power and also a bit of turbo
whistling. After all that is what puts a smile on
the enthusiast’s face.
Performance is good, 100kmph comes up
in just over 10 seconds, and the bottom end
punch is strong thanks to peak torque of 171Nm
peaking at just 1500rpm and staying flat till
4000rpm. Fuel efficiency is also surprisingly
good for a turbocharged engine (maybe that’s
the reason why it feels so mild) and we got
12kmpl while hot-footing back to Guwahati.Turns heads everywhere it goes
The hype around the Venue has been incredible,
everybody knows about this compact SUV, and
everybody stops and stares. Even though this
is a small little SUV, the Venue cuts a seriously
striking shape on the road. If you’re a shrinking
violet, avoid the red, for it looks stunning and will
draw stares. The proportions of the Venue are
also spot on. The wheel arch gaps are perfectly
judged, it does not look like the ride height has
been jacked up for India, and neither does it look
like it has been chopped from the rear to squeeze
it to under four metres in length. There is a very
nice sense of balance to the styling; gone are thedays of over-done Hyundais and in comes the era
of modern, bold and striking cars and SUVs that
incorporate a very European sense of style, class
and aesthetics.
On the inside don’t expect an overdose of soft-
touch plastics but remember this is a compact SUV
with the best-selling variants at a shade under
`10 lakh. You get hard plastics, quite liberally
polished on our test cars, but it is a nice all-black
trim that has both a touch of sophistication and
sportiness. The days of overwhelmingly beige
interiors are gone too; buyers have evolved and
the Venue caters to the more refined tastes of
today. It also has enough space on the inside, so it
doesn’t have to resort to all-beige tricks to make
the cabin feel roomy. Two adults of my height,
five feet nine inches, can sit back-to-back and
not have the knees digging into the front seats.
It’s not wide enough to make three abreast at
the rear very comfortable but for four the Venue
is sufficiently spacious for a compact SUV. The
stereo too is very good. Things I don’t like? There
are three USB slots ahead of the wireless phone
charger and the third one is plugged into the
cigarette lighter with a wire hanging underneath
that supplies power to the wireless charger. It
could have been done a little more neatly but at
least it has the space for an iPhone XS Max, unlike
SUVs twice its size.
No car is perfect but for the compact SUV
segment the Venue really does deliver everything
you’d want and then some. And the best part is
it doesn’t look or feel like a compromise — it is
neither something chopped down to size nor a
car jacked up for pseudo-SUV chops. If there was
ever a car that could push the Indian automotive
industry out of the slump it currently finds itself
in, the Venue is it. But we will only know exactly
how good it is but pitting it back to back against
its rivals. Turn the page! LHYUNDAI VENUEEngine 998cc, in-line 4-cyl,
turbo-petrol
Transmission 7-speed DCT
Power 118bhp @ 6000rpm
Torque 172Nm @ 1500-4000rpm
Weight NA
0-100kmph NA
Top speed NA
Price `11.1 lakh (ex-showroom)