The Hyundai Venue facelift has been launched in India at Rs 7.53 lakh. Just before the launch, we decided to revisit our most popular Hyundai Venue drive stories and have put together a list of our top four drive stories, since 2019, with the compact SUV. It was launched in India on 21 May 2019 and at that time it was priced in the range of Rs 6.50 lakh to Rs 10.80 lakh with 13 variants across three engines and two gearbox options.

First drive review

In our first ever encounter with the Venue we drove the then first in segment 1.0-litre GDi turbo petrol SX variant manual. Here we found that it ticked all the right boxes in terms of features, ride quality and punch from the engine. On the flip side, it could have done with more shoulder room at the rear.

Long term review

Just a short while after the drive, a diesel-powered Venue joined our long-term fleet and in those eight months, we did quite a bit with the car even in the face of a pandemic.During that time it did the city-run, and highway run and even proved to be a valuable support car for our photo and video shoots. At the end of our stint, we had managed to put 11616km on the clock, the likes of which included story number five in this list.

iMT

The Hyundai Venue was the first car in the country to introduce a clutch-less manual. This was an alternative approach to the automated manual and saw the car get a manual transmission but with an automated clutch. During our drive experience, we discovered that you got all the benefits of a manual but without any of the extra struggles associated with having a third pedal in the car.

Road test

This was our most comprehensive review of the Venue since it was launched and here we got our hands on the 1.0-litre petrol and the 1.4-litre diesel that was eventually replaced by a 1.5-litre engine that now powers the entire Hyundai diesel family right from the i20 to the Alcazar three-row SUV. Here too we were impressed with the feature list and driving experience that the Venue offered.

Great India drive 2019

While we may call this a top 4 list, we can’t forget our most epic adventure with the Venue. At the 2019 Great India drive, we took the then brand new Venue from the Statue of Unity in Gujarat to the dusty shores of Jaisalmer. En route, we took in all the sights, sounds and a lot of food. In the end, the Venue diesel gave us 16.9kmpl consistently over the 3000km trip.

Photography: Kapil Angane & Kaustubh Gandhi