Hyundai Bayon review - Practicality, comfort and boot space

The Hyundai Bayon is a small SUV, so if you’re expecting endless space inside, you might be disappointed - but it’s a practical car despite its small size, so it scores well here. The bold styling doesn’t appear to have impacted the car’s interior space - in fact, it has a larger boot than the brand’s more conventional-looking Kona.

There’s a good amount of interior storage, including a big glovebox and deep door bins. The front of the cabin isn’t huge, and it feels slightly narrow, but there aren’t any issues with legroom or headroom for the driver and front passenger. Wireless phone charging is a useful extra on Premium models and above, and there’s a convenient slot for your phone ahead of the gear lever even on models without the charging function.

Size

The Bayon is 4,180mm long and 1,775mm wide (excluding door mirrors), which makes it slightly smaller than Hyundai’s other small SUV, the Kona. That model is 4,205mm long and 1,800mm wide.

Plus, the Bayon is 1,500mm tall, which is about 50mm shorter than its stablemate. Despite this it manages to beat the Kona for boot space, which means the Bayon is great if you want a slightly smaller car without losing any practicality.

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Leg room, head room & passenger space

There’s a good amount of legroom in the back seats, so you should be able to fit in two adults on the back row - though most people using these seats are likely to be kids, who will have plenty of space.

The middle seat is ok for a third child, and the seat backs fold down in a 60/40 split so you can mix and match with load space and passenger seating.

Boot

There’s 401 litres of boot space available in all versions of the Bayon, and that expands out to 1,205 litres with the rear seats folded. That’s pretty good for a small SUV - and it’s more than you get in the Kona (which has 374 and 1,156 litres respectively).

The Skoda Kamiq is one of the most practical cars in this class, so it’s worth a comparison there. The Hyundai actually trumps the 400-litre space in the Kamiq with the seats up, but in terms of total space the Skoda is the winner, with 1,395 litres.

Towing

Buyers that are looking for a car with good towing ability will probably be drawn to models with a bigger engine and more power and torque than the Bayon, although Hyundai's small SUV has a 1,100kg maximum braked trailer weight which should be enough for most basic needs.