Most car enthusiasts pride themselves on being able to identify pretty much any car out on the road. In recent years, though, it has been getting a lot harder to do this. Increasingly we are seeing a lot of very derivative styling, especially from the Chinese brands, where their (mainly) crossover vehicles could be almost anything, with nothing that makes them easy to identify. Among the more established brands, most have come up with a “house style”, so you can be pretty sure of the marque you are looking at, but far less sure of the model. Aston Martin and McLaren among the supercar brands really require more than second glance, and who can confidently tell one of the Q model Audi crossovers apart from another, or distinguish at a glance the Mercedes saloon and coupe models? I will admit I struggle with these and many others, and the test car under review here is a case in point. The latest Hyundai Accent has been on my list of cars to try to sample since the arrival of a fifth generation car at the end of 2017, and so when I arrived at the Hertz area of the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, and I spotted what from a distance was clearly a Hyundai saloon, I headed over to it, checked the badge on the back said Accent, which it did, so I got in it, adjusted things so I could drive it and headed off. The car had only done 7760 miles, so surely it was the Accent that was on my list? Well, no. When I looked the paperwork, I found that this car was actually a 2017 model year car, and that meant that whilst it was indeed an Accent, it was the previous generation car, production of which had ceased in late 2017, and which I had already driven in both saloon and hatch forms. By this time, it was too late, really, to do anything about it, and anyway, I had seen a truly dire weather forecast that suggested that whatever I was going to be driving, I was not going to be taking far, as all the warnings were to stay indoors for at least the next 24 hours!

Marketed under a variety of names around the world, the car I had received was a fourth generation Accent, the RB Series. This was first seen in Korea in November 2010 where the car is known as the Verna. The sedan version of the North American market model, retaining the Accent name, appeared a few months later in January 2011, joined by a five door hatch at the Montreal Auto Show later that year. This is Hyundai’s entry level model and is designed to offer affordable motoring for those on a budget. Historically, it has featured quite prominently in the rental car fleets, in what Hertz call Group B, for sub-compact cars where it rivals the Nissan Versa, Kia Rio, Mitsubishi Mirage G4, Chevrolet Sonic, Toyota Yaris iA and Ford Fiesta among the small sedan category as well as taking on the hatch versions of those cars and a few others besides. It’s always come across as a well-engineered car that is cheap because it is small and limited in equipment levels, but rather less overtly budget in nature than some of those other rivals. The sedan sells more strongly in the US, and indeed when it came to replace the RB Series in 2017 with a new model, there was no hatch version, its place being taken by the Venue crossover. But this test is about that fourth generation RB series car. Quite where it had been to have covered only 7760 miles since 2017, who knows, but the question here was more about how I would feel about a car whose roots go back to 2010 and which changed very little in that time, mostly in differing trim levels and minor specification changes.

That weather forecast proved to be very accurate, and when I saw just how nasty it was the following morning, prudence suggested staying indoors, foregoing all plans for where I was going to go during the day. It did dry up late on, but by that time, there was no real chance to go anywhere much, so I ended up driving this car not much further than the journey from the Hertz facility to the hotel and back again, covering just 20 miles. Accordingly, I bought no fuel, as it would have been hard to squeeze in the minimum that a fuel station wants you to buy. That means I have to dig out the driving impressions from when I last tested an Accent sedan of this generation, back in November 2014, which was mechanically the same, differing just in trim details. All Accent models have a 1.6 litre four cylinder engine which generates 137 bhp, one of the highest for cars in its class and a pretty decent output for a small car. A six speed manual gearbox is standard, whilst a six speed automatic is a cost option, which featured both on this test car and the previous one. Accelerating up a freeway ramp is not really enough to tell you much about the performance, but my review from the 2014 test noted that the 137 bhp is enough to give the Accent decent performance, and that the engine is smooth and willing, yet noise levels are impressively low for an economy car. That test car was taken up in the canyons above LA and acquitted itself well and also delivered impressive levels of fuel economy. The other driving characteristics were a bit less compelling, and I could see some evidence of that even in this sort of test, with steering which is extremely light, which whilst making the Accent very easy to manoeuvre means that there is no real feel as to what the steered wheels are doing. Not a problem on the urban roads where I drove this one, but more of an issue on the canyon roads where I tested the last one. Handling, I noted, was of the predictable and safe front wheel drive variety, with a tendency to understeer as you put the speed on in the bends, but the suspension and the relatively high profile 175/70 R14 wheels mean that ride comfort is generally good. There were no issues with the brakes, and even on wet roads here, I found none, either. The Accent still features an old-school pull-up handbrake fitted between the seats. Visibility is as good as you get from a modern car, though the field of view form the mirrors is good, and the compact dimensions make the car easy to place. This being a 2017 car, it did not have the rear-view camera that is mandated on all US models from 2018.

The entry level version of a cheap car the Accent SE may be, but once you get past the fact that there is no remote central locking (you need to use a key), the interior is far from bargain basement in appearance. That of the test car was a mix of black and oatmeal in colour and used some perfectly acceptable quality of materials, even the plastic moulded steering wheel being OK to hold. There is a simple dash layout, but in many ways, the Accent is all the better for that, making it supremely easy to use. A single instrument binnacle contains two large dials for speedometer and rev counter with a bar chart style fuel gauge set between them. There are two column stalks, with the lights included on the left hand one. There are no wheel mounted buttons at all on this SE trim car. Evidence more of the age of the design of this model than its price, perhaps, came from what now seems like an old-school stereo unit in the centre of the dash, but it included XM Satellite radio and the sound quality from the six speakers was acceptable, as far as I could tell. Bluetooth isn’t available on SE trims (not even as an option) and there’s no smartphone app integration. The only concession is a USB port for charging or an audio signal. There is also a CD player and a USB jack for playing music from a smartphone/device or thumb drive. No navigation is offered at any trim level. You get manual air conditioning, not climate control, but again, that’s OK, especially at this price point.

Seat upholstery is cloth, of the sort that used to be common-place a few years ago, and you can adjust the position of the front seats manually, using a bar under the seat for fore/aft movement and levers on the side for backrest angle and height (for the driver only). There is  no telescoping steering wheel with SE trim, the wheel simply moving up and down but even so, getting the right driving position was easy, and the seat seemed comfortable enough, though as I did not drive far, cannot be definitive on that. The rear cabin is particularly spacious for a car of this size, with adequate legroom even if the front seats are set well back, and there were no issues with headroom, though three across seating is not really realistic for anyone other than children. There are no door bins here, though, so provision for oddments stowage is non-existent. There’s no external release for the boot, so you access it either by pressing a button on the key fob or by pulling a lever by the driver’s seat, fairly common practice among cheaper Asian cars even now. For a small car, there is generous space here, with plenty of room for a couple of large suitcases and some softer bags. Even in this entry level SE trim, you get split-folding rear seat backrests which drop down to create a much longer load platform. Inside the passenger compartment, there is a good-sized glove box, a stowage recess in front of the gearlever, and door pockets and you get both a drop down armrest and central cupholders.

The 2017 Hyundai Accent came either as a small four-door sedan or a four-door hatchback. Both seat five passengers. The sedan was offered in base SE and Value Edition trims, while the hatchback was sold in SE and Sport variations. Each uses a 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine (137 bhp, 123 lb/ft torque) and either a six-speed manual or automatic transmission. The Accent is front-wheel-drive. The SE sedan came standard with a six-speed manual transmission, 14-inch steel wheels, keyless entry, air-conditioning, full power accessories, a height-adjustable driver seat, a tilt-adjustable steering wheel, a driver-seat armrest, a 60/40-split folding rear seat, a trip computer, and a six-speaker sound system with a CD player, satellite radio and USB/auxiliary inputs. The Value Edition sedan added a six-speed automatic transmission, 16-inch machine-finish alloy wheels, rear disc brakes, hill start assist, steering-wheel audio controls, cruise control, Bluetooth phone connectivity, and a centre console storage box with a sliding armrest console.  The SE hatchback shares the same features as the sedan but adds a rear window wiper. The Sport trim combines SE and Value Edition features and adds heated side mirrors (with driver’s blind-spot viewer and integrated turn-signal indicators), a body-colour spoiler, projector-beam headlights with LED accents, foglights, sport-tuned steering, a leather-trimmed tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel, upgraded cloth upholstery and piano black interior accents.

My test car was the entry level SE and it certainly did feel basic in many regards, but when you look at the overall package, for those who want a small car on a budget, actually the Accent has plenty to recommend it, and you could always upgrade to the Value Edition to address some of the cost-reducing omissions from the spec sheet. Accommodation is spacious, and whilst it is not fast, it is brisk enough whilst still being economical (according to my previous test!) and would be perfectly viable for longer journeys as well as shorter ones. The Accent is likely to prove painless to own over many years, as Hyundai models have a good reputation in this regard and have the best warranty proposition on the US market. It’s not hard to see why it sold in decent numbers, not just to the rental car companies, and why despite the inexorable move to small crossovers, Hyundai developed the replacement model which is the one I had been planning to test. That one is still on my list, and next time, when I think I see one, I will double-check just to make sure. I expect it to have mostly the same virtues with a slightly updated list of equipment and technology.