Triple test: Veloster vs Astra GTC vs Scirocco

The Hyundai feels like it has one or more wheels in the air on the same sort of road. It's very stiffly sprung, and the 18-inchers on this version's Sport Pack have very short sidewalls, so there's a bit of ride harshness and a lot of road noise too. Save money and improve both these matters by getting the base model at £18k. And yet, on smooth corners, the Veloster starts to embrace your inner driver: it's keen to turn, hardly rolls at all and the electric steering comes alive.

That last bit is a real surprise. Most of the time, the Hyundai's steering is really annoying, a classic electric-power mess-up. It's finger-light for parking speed, and then suddenly gets heavy, even at 10mph. It's high-geared, but lacks self-centring around the straightahead, so you need to concentrate to keep it straight on motorways (which the Veloster isn't much good at anyway, because it kicks up so much road noise). The overall sense is that Hyundai's engineers didn't really know what they wanted the steering to feel like, so gave it a bit of everything. Same with the styling, you might argue.