Hyundai i40 Saloon European launch at Barcelona

Hyundai i40 Saloon - Europe's own i40 saloon gets launched at Barcelona

It’s all been topsy-turvy, the launch of the Hyundai i40. Not only did most of the world get the i40/Sonata ahead of Europe, but they got a different car too.

And then when Europe did get the i40 they didn’t even get a saloon car like the rest of the world. Oh, no. In the upside down world of Hyundai car launches Europe got the Hyundai i40 Estate, and no saloon option on offer.

To make this whole caper even more peculiar, and despite telling Cars UK that the i-Flow Concept-based i40 Estate is a Europe-only car, Hyundai in Australia – who have a different i40/i45/Sonata – are planning on taking the supposedly Europe-only i40 Estate to the Antipodes.

As you would expect, we asked Hyundai what they were playing at. Interestingly, they didn’t respond. So we persevered and picked up the phone. ‘We’ll get back to you on that’, they said. But they never have.

So we’ve concluded even Hyundai doesn’t know the rationale behind the gazillion versions of the Sonata now being sold in diverse markets around the world. And now there’s yet another Hyundai i40 to throw in to the mix.

Next week, at the Barcelona Motor Show, Hyundai will launch the European i40 saloon. Which is the Europe-only saloon version of the i40 Estate. With all the same options and engines and everything else. But with a boot instead of a load area. And we will, apparently, see it on sale in Europe in early 2012.

Unless it goes to Australia first.

By Cars UK