Cabbie Drives 2,500 Miles from Northampton to Barcelona and Back to Save Stranded Holiday-Makers, Clocks up £4,600 / $S7,000 Fare!

Hyundai UK must be very proud of itself, because it dropped a press release about a Northampton cabbie, his son, and the Hyundai i800 van (or MPV) they drive to Barcelona in order to pick up some vacationers and their baggage. I guess this recent volcanic ash situation has been good for someone...

Garry Smith, the owner, explains, "We got the call at 9.30am on Tuesday and were on the road within an hour to collect four people. I took my son Ben so we could share the driving and booked the Eurotunnel crossing on route. When the passengers heard what car we were in they asked if we could take six people which because of the car, we were happy to do."

The 2,500 (UK) mile trip took two days and would have cost the stranded family £4,600.05 or US$7,050 (DAMN), except that both parties agreed on a fixed fee of £1,850 or US$2,830 (whew). That breaks down to around £300 per passenger. Why so much less?

Garry said it was because ""it wouldn't really be fair to charge them the meter rate". So decent people still do exist.

Hyundai i800: New 8-Seater Full-Size Minivan

Following its debut in the Korean market last year as the Starex (see here), Hyundai is introducing its full-size minivan in Europe as the i800. The 2009 Hyundai i800 features three rows of seats capable of accommodating eight adults. The two last rows feature a 60:40 split-fold and recline while the centre row also slides forwards or backwards.

All of the rear seats are accessed through a pair of sliding doors. Hyundai says that the 5.125mm (201.8-in.) long i800 has a more than adequate 851 liters of space in the boot even with all eight-passengers aboard.

Although the i800 is based on the H1 Commercial vehicle, Hyundai has enhanced its people carrier with a purpose-made coil sprung rear suspension system with five locating links. In Europe, the i800 is powered by Hyundai’s new 2.5-liter four-cylinder CRDi diesel engine which features a variable-geometry turbo, developing 170Hp and 392Nm of torque. Power is transferred to the rear-wheels via a 5-speed manual gearbox. -Continued

According to the Korean carmaker, the diesel-powered i800 features combined fuel economy figure of 27.7 US mpg or 8.5 lt / 100 km. Combined with a 75 liter tank, the i800 MPV can theoretically go more than 560 miles or 900 km between fill ups.

In the UK, the i800 will go on sale on 20th June costing £19,495 or about $38,000 / €24,700. It will be joined later in the year by a lower power, lower specification version at a more competitive price.