‘It looks like a Golf,” my friend said to me as I pulled up outside his place in the car you see here, the brand new for 2017 Hyundai i30.

There was a time not so long ago when Hyundai’s marketing thrust here in Ireland was based on the premise that the Korean marque was ‘Ireland’s fastest growing car brand’ and a very neat little tag line it was, adding weight and substance to otherwise bland advertising.

Hyundai Motor is poised to sell fewer vehicles than it projected for the first time since the global financial crisis, after an economic slowdown sapped demand in China and emerging-market earnings slumped due to unfavourable exchange rates.

I remember the not-so-distant past, when Hyundai was an automotive joke. The South Korean outfit endeavoured earnestly, without question, but the results of their labours were awful.

IT IS funny how in life that sometimes you go out of your way to try and be helpful to someone, but end up being vilified in return.

THE Hyundai Santa Fe has become an ubiquitous sight on Irish roads and has, down the years, become the SUV of choice for many drivers in this country across a wide spectrum of buyers — from farmers to business owners and on to families.

TIME WAS when the Hyundai Coupé was a major hit among certain elements of the driving community and it would not be a lie to say that women drivers formed a very large proportion of those numbers. Indeed, demand for the Coupé once hit such heights that owners were being contacted by their local dealers to see if they wanted to sell, such was the demand for them as a secondhand purchase.

WHEN Hyundai built the first generation i30, it redefined the South Korean firm. The Kia Cee’d, which is pretty much the same as the i30, did the same for Hyundai’s sister company.