The 1990s were booming years for coupes. Honda, Ford, VW, Vauxhall were in on it, as was everyone else: producing sporting cars for the common man. Hyundai entered this lucrative and image boosting sector with the first generation Hyundai Coupe. It was heralded as the best car to have come out of Korea to date: good looks, decent handling and performance and typical Hyundai value and reliability made it a deserved hit globally. Success continued to the end of its life despite a rather ham-fisted facelift that many thought corrupted the original's pretty features.

The latest version reviewed here picks up where its predecessors left off. Good looking and well proportioned, the Coupe looks like a Coupe should: sleek and stylish. This, the base model 1.6 (designated simply 'S'), wears the 16" alloys from its bigger 2.0-litre powered SE brother and also features the same sculpted spoilers fore and aft. One can almost overlook the features shamelessly borrowed from more renowned manufacturers, such as those strakes behind the front arches (*cough* Ferrari 456 *cough*). Some of the detail (such as the filler cap) is overly fussy, but overall the Coupe scores well in a characteristic that in this market sector almost more than any other is the big selling point.

Being a 1.6-litre of just over 100bhp, the engine does somewhat scuppers the Coupe's outright sporting pretensions. With the best will in the world this car is slow; mild family hatch slow. But it's a deceptive lack of pace; it only feels slow when you ask it the big question and mash the throttle. Drive it around on light throttle openings and short shift your way through the slick 'box and it feels fine. Only when stretched above 5000rpm does the engine get raucous - its relative breathlessness is the price the engineers chose to pay when wisely tuning the engine for torque rather than a headline power figure. However, take this in context and accept the fact that the majority of keen drivers would want more on paper performance to start with and the Coupe makes a relaxing cruising partner.

That is not to say there is no driver involvement or enjoyment to be had. The Coupe possesses a very fine chassis. A surplus of grip thanks to its bigger brother's 16" rims and tyres overwhelms the modest power on tap, but the way the grip is deployed is excellent. After a sharp turn-in the Coupe quickly settles to the task in hand with very little body roll and understeer. In extremis the nose doesn't plough on; instead the whole chassis drifts, making maintaining the hard earned momentum a real pleasure. The steering, whilst a little light for our liking, is quick and accurate and gives good feedback from the interface of tyre and tarmac. The brakes are also shared with the bigger-engined cars, meaning that the Coupe is over endowed with braking power, which allows certain liberties to be taken into corners. The slick shifting 'box is also pleasing to use. Only a slight clutch judder marred our test car's performance in terms of driver enjoyment.

The interior is standard coupe format: comfortable for three adults, a little tight for four, but the overall packaging is impressive with a good-sized boot adding to the practicality. The seats, in the front at least, are excellent: heavily bolstered and with an excellent range of adjustment these are some of the few seats in which I fit, and feel genuinely well supported. The driving position is a little offset, but not so much as to be an issue. The wheel also adjusts allowing you to customise everything to your liking; for me the only negative was the fact the clutch footrest was a little high. The dash layout is conservatively sporty with Alfa-style circular vents and a variety of brushed aluminium surfaces on the centre console and doors. Some of the materials are a little cheap looking, with the stalks being the worst culprits, but overall it's a pleasant environment to be in.

Where Hyundai don't scrimp is in the equipment stakes. Air conditioning, CD player (even if it is annoying to use and a bit flashy light naff) and electric everything is a fine complement of equipment on any car, never mind a relatively low volume sporting coupe. The 5-year warranty adds more sweetener to the deal and is a real testament to Hyundai's faith in their build quality and processes.

At £14,500 you have to hunt far and wide to find a natural competitor to the base Coupe. Indeed scouring the price lists turned up only one: Peugeot's 206CC, and that can't match the overall package. So there you have it, if you want a stylish decent-sized coupe that handles well, is well equipped and reliable then the Hyundai Coupe 1.6S is peerless. The thing is that you won't buy the Coupe because there is no alternative. You'll pick it because you actually want one. The car is a genuinely good one. How good? Well I had to be as knit picky as to complain about the indicator self-cancelling too easily to find a decent negative...

Performance fans will have to look higher up in the range to quench their need for pace but the bigger engined variants are still stunningly good value. As with its forebear, Hyundai's Coupe is the best car ever to come out of Korea. Where it is different is in the fact that it is now one you'd buy ahead of European and Japanese rivals on merits, not just the price.