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Delivering the delights of SUV type vehicles not offered in traditional, low slung small cars, Tucson City packs more people room, superior vision, easier entry and egress, a plethora of storage solutions, plus the maximized usability of flat folding front and rear seats in its roomy wagon body, all within its parkable 4.3 metre length.

Up to now in urban-friendly smallish vehicles, these advantages have come largely in SUVs with 4WD and its associated extra purchase cost and fuel consumption. It’s well known although not always admitted that most drivers of such vehicles don’t need or ever use their 4WD function and some don’t even know it’s there.

At $25,990 rrp*, Tucson City saves $4000 and avoids the higher fuel use inevitable with the extra weight and friction of a 4WD drivetrain, not only with its 2WD but also by taking advantage of its 158kg lighter weight and offering Elantra’s fuel-frugal but torquey 2.0 litre, variable valve timing four cylinder engine linked to Tucson’s Selectronic automatic transmission with sequential clutchless manual mode.

This drivetrain delivers Tucson City an economical 9.2 litres/100km on unleaded petrol, according to the standard Australian Design Rule 81/01 combined city and highway laboratory test regime.

*recommended retail plus on-road costs

Convenience within confines

“Tucson City is a small car for those with lifestyles that demand maximum adaptability and convenience within urban and suburban confines,” said Theo van Doore, Director of Sales and Marketing for Hyundai Motor Co Australia.

“Whether they be parallel parking in the strip shopping precinct, slotting into minimalist medium density garages and still leaving some storage room, flipping down the seats and stashing the surfboard or the mountain bike--without having to unbolt the front wheel, or no-stoop strapping the kids into their child seats, Tucson City makes sense in city, suburbs and all those places most people drive 99 per cent of their time,” said Mr van Doore.

Tucson City is right in tune with today’s motoring wants, providing a more liveable, left-field alternative to higher-series small cars like Mazda3 or Focus or wagons like Astra, Corolla or Peugeot 307, all of which take up more park space and offer less room and flexibility from around the same purchase price to much more.

With its variable valve timing 2.0 litre engine delivering up to 184Nm of torque at 4500rpm and 104kW of power at 6000rpm through the front wheels, Tucson City accelerates off the line briskly — helped by its standard TCS (Traction Control System) on a wet or slippery surface — and keeps apace with the traffic.

Tucson City brings with it the comfort, safety and convenience features of its AWD (All-Wheel-Drive) sibling. Such amenities include air-conditioning with pollen filter, ABS with EBD, 16” alloy wheels including the spare wheel, cruise control, remote entry with alarm, power windows with driver’s glass one-touch lowering, dual front airbags, electric door mirrors, roof rails, front and rear fog lights, luggage elastic net and an overhead console with sunglasses bin and map lights.

New City kit

New features debuting in Tucson City are a substantially upgraded audio, leather trimmed steering wheel and gearshift lever knob, lumbar adjustment added to the driver’s seat, fore-aft adjustment for the front head restraints, sun visor slide-out shade extenders and there’s a new, quality fabric on seats and door trim inserts.

City’s new MP3/CD/FM/AM audio increases output power to 45W from 25W, the disc player now adds WMA format to MP3, a graphic equalizer function with rock, pop, jazz and classical music modes is added, as is a mid-level tone adjustment, the loudness boost is improved and anti-skip insulation is extended from eight to 38 seconds. Six speakers remain standard, including tweeters.

A new design, retracting cargo cover blind pulls back over the boot space while two separate pull forward blinds close the gap to the rear seat backrests and accommodate their five rake angle adjustments. All the blinds can be used just by opening the rear glass panel, handy for stowing smaller things out of sight quickly.

Projecting a cleaner, more urbane look, Tucson City eschews the cladding on the lower door sides and wheel arches of the AWD Tucson. The sculpturing of the original bodywork mirrors the same contours and with full body colour matching the bumpers as well as door handles and mirror backs, the overall look is one of appropriate sophistication.

A small chromed “City” badge on the tailgate under the “Tucson” badge replacing the “AWD” moniker completes the look.

Underneath, a purpose-designed, lighter mass rear cross member and suspension set with longer lateral links is fitted to take advantage of City’s front wheel drive simplicity. Also helping to cut weight is a slightly smaller 58 litre fuel tank.

Gearing is slightly lower overall than in the AWD, via a lower ratio differential, to optimally match Tucson City’s engine to the cut and thrust of urban traffic.

Appeal

Tucson City will appeal particularly to young, active urban singles, couples or younger families with a couple of kids to tote to school and weekend sport.

Urban-savvy Tucson City touchstones include a park-friendly 4.3 metre overall length, ideal step-in height to moderately elevated seating, a raft of storage facilities and cupholders, good all round vision and ideal rear stowage access.

Tucson’s tailgate shelters from rain and in very tight confines, boot space is accessible through its separately openable window.

On the move, Tucson’s delights with taut, responsive handling allied with good ride comfort and a high level of interior refinement and quietness. Tucson City adopts a variation of the sportier suspension calibration Hyundai specially developed for Tucsons marketed in Europe and like-minded motoring nations which prefer driver-enjoyment dynamics to a more pillowy riding alternative offered elsewhere.

Tucson City is offered in seven sophisticated exterior colours and grey or beige interior trim matched with them. Noble White and Ebony Black are both solid tones while the three metallic and two mica finishes add $225 extra.

Like all Hyundais, Tucson offers owners the quality assurance of Australia’s best continuously offered factory new car warranty, five years or 130,000km.

Exterior

Tucson City is a crisply modern, cleanly styled car with well defined character lines, yet retaining some traditional Hyundai styling cues.

At the front, two pronounced ridge lines converge slightly as they run forward along the hood and waterfall down framing the black mesh grille aperture. The front bumper continues the line downwards to establish the width of the lower air intake grille mouth. Circular foglights are set into the flat bumper surface directly underneath the headlight assembly.

Tucson’s side profile is dominated by a strong creaseline running straight back above the door handles and the protective cladding on the lower doors and around the wheel arches which integrate with the front and rear bumpers.

Clinics judged Tucson’s tail a cute butt and the car’s best look, a nice touch considering it’s the most viewed aspect of a car in traffic. A clean, sophisticated look derives from the unencumbered tailgate and the composite taillights with their jewelled faceted-reflectors while the large, oval chrome tailpipe is a neat finishing touch.

Alloy 16” x 6.5” wheels feature on Tucson City, its five flat spoke design framed in 215/65 tyres.

Tucson’s long 2630mm wheelbase, its short overhangs and raised ground clearance bestow a purposeful presence on the road. Its cropped 810mm rear overhang allows an exceptionally steep departure angle for those extra steep driveways.

The fixed mini-antenna on the rear roof is specially positioned to offer optimum reception and clarity, with minimum intrusion into the roof space.

Overall, Tucson shows extremely fine proportions, which disguise the actual roominess of the interior, key images being strong, sporty and urban.

Smart seats

Tucson City’s ‘Space Wizard’ seating is an inviting and intuitively innovative design and offers some uniquely convenient configurations. In the 60/40 split rear seat, each backrest folds forward to virtually flat and level with the boot floor in a single, one-hand action which also lowers the seat cushion underneath. This provides between 1.635 and 1.855 metres of flat load length right up to the front seat backs, depending on front seat adjustment, enough for a 26” mountain bike to be laid on the all-wipeable load surface. No head restraints need be removed in any of these configurations. The rear floor also lifts out for washing down.

Even more in-cabin load length is available. The left front seat backrest also folds forward to horizontal, which then not only acts as a work table with its hard mostly flat surface and elastic net pocket, but greatly extends the in-cabin load length to a diagonal maximum of 2.7 metres (8’10” in Malibu speak) or 2.49m (8’2”) along the cabin left side, clear of the front passenger airbag door and with the rear seat still two-thirds erected.

Tucson’s step-in height of 717mm is near ideal for most people and the seating pleasantly but not overly elevated for vision in traffic. Anatomically shaped and padded front seats with driver lumbar support offer good support on long trips and, with their four-way adjustable head restraints removed, the backrests recline to flat, making a bed with the rear seat cushion.

The driver’s seat cushion adjusts for height and tilt and addresses a vertically adjustable steering wheel and a low dash panel with the instrument dials including a tachometer tightly binnacled in front of the driver, in which the large speedo is central, where it needs to be given the level of speed surveillance in Australia.

Interior

Tucson City’s lean, athletic appearance clothes a spaciously comfortable, but fully functional interior. Traditional Hyundai virtues, such as high equipment levels, exceptional value for money and long lasting quality, add a further depth of appeal to an extremely versatile and stylish lifestyle companion.

The interior ambience is also very much a part of the Tucson City appeal, with sophisticated fabrics and quality materials combining to provide an atmosphere that is both reassuring and comfortable, yet impressively practical.

Storage places abound, such as the small lipped trays under each door pull, just right for a mobile phone, the double bin in the centre console whose padded elbow rest top raises to accommodate tall front occupants. There are four retractable shopping bag hooks, two cupholders each front and rear, three 12v points, a flock-lined coin drawer and coin rack, pockets with bottle holders on all doors, an overhead sunglasses console, two wet compartments under the rear floor by the alloy spare wheel and a brolly shelf under the steering column, to name a few. The lit glovebox even has a slide-in divider as well as a book retaining elastic strap. And there’s a drawer under the left front seat.

Chassis

Tucson’s all independent coil spring and gas damper suspension sports anti-roll bars front and rear, MacPherson struts up front and multi-links at the rear. The calibration is biased to responsive handling and factors in good ride comfort for Australia’s patched and lumpy urban roads, helped by Tucson’s exceptionally stiff body. Power assisted rack and pinion steering via the tilt-adjustable steering wheel ensures precision, complemented by ease of parking and a compact 10.8m turning circle diameter between kerbs.

Safety

Tucson has just been safety rated at the maximum five stars by the US National Highway Transport Safety Administration and was internally tested to EuroNCAP at four stars during development.

Tucson’s active safety is provided by its agile handling, ABS-equipped brakes, electronic traction control and good vision.

Backing up is Tucson’s computer designed rigid cabin structure protected by impact absorbing front and rear ends, load diffusion paths, four body rollover hoops and door-stiffening side impact protection beams. Tucson has dual front airbags and front seat belts with pre-tensioners, load-limiters and height-adjustable upper pillar mounts.

All five seating positions have retractable sash/lap seatbelts and vertically adjustable head restraints, those in front now four-way adjustable and the three rear ones being wrapover low profile designs for maximized rear vision. All three child seat top tether strap anchor points have their brackets already fitted ready for use under neat flap covers in the floor immediately behind the rear seat back base where intrusion into luggage space is minimized.