HYUNDAI Motor Company Australia (HMCA) recently introduced the new i30 Sedan to the Australian market as a replacement for its slow-selling Elantra, a small sedan offered in the same segment as the ever-popular i30 hatch.

To try and inject some more sales action into the segment and help overhaul the Toyota Corolla as the king of the sub-$40,000 small car segment, HMCA decided to rebadge the new fourth-generation Elantra as the i30 Sedan and capitalise on the nameplate’s popularity.

The thing is though, the i30 Sedan isn’t an i30 – it rides on a completely different platform for starters and shares none of the hatch’s panels on top of being a whole 310mm longer.

We were curious as to if this new bigger offering was worthy of wearing the i30 badge or if it would be better off sticking with the Elantra nameplate after all.