This facelifted warm hatch is hot on the trail of original tarmac.

Price: $42,990
Powertrain: 1.6-litre direct injected and turbocharged petrol engine, 150kW/265Nm, front-wheel drive, seven-speed dual clutch automatic, economy 7.6 L/100km, 176 g/km CO2.
Vital statistics: 4510mm long, 1800mm wide, 1440mm high, wheelbase 1770mm.

Like: Nice sporty treatment to a conservative-looking hatch, plenty of interior room and high level of standard specification, performance level can be fun, attractive price. 
Not so much: Engine note can get coarse, tyre roar can be intrusive, does the ride need to be quite that firm?

TWO photographs from the same small town location, 120 years apart.

The site is Bridge St in the central Taranaki town of Eltham. The significance of the early photograph? It was taken shortly after the street was sealed. The first in New Zealand to receive tarmac.

Why take the Kia Cerato GT to the same spot the other day? Because it’s a good example of a genre of car that needs well-sealed roads to operate at its best.

The history.

Bridge St was notorious for either being a muddy quagmire in the winter which could hardly be traversed by the skinny-wheeled motor vehicles or horse and carts of the day, or a dust bowl in the summer which caused dirt to gather centimetres deep in shop doorways.

Something had to be done. Eltham businessman and local body politician CA Wilkinson had a solution. In 1902 during a visit to the United States he observed what was known as tarred macadam. Essentially was road gravel mixed with tar, a by-product from burning coal to produce the so-called town gas used for street lighting.

On his return Wilkinson convinced the Eltham Borough Council that Bridge St should be sealed in this way. The council agreed, and in 1906 it called for tenders for the mixing and laying of 1500 cubic metres of the tarred macadam in Eltham’s CBD.

A foundation of 13cm of pre-tarred road metal was laid and compacted, followed by another 8cm inches of smaller metal and chips also mixed with the tar, and the whole process was then topped off with a layer of sand.

This was all similar to a road construction process called macadam, so named because it was pioneered in the 19th Century by Scottish engineer John McAdam – the main difference being that McAdam’s macadam didn’t use any binder.

This process was employed all over the world to build good roads at the time, but as the years progressed and the motor vehicle developed, a major problem cropped up: as vehicle speeds increased, the cars increasingly sucked dust from the road surfaces, which covered everything all around.

Binding tar into the macadam instantly overcame that problem, as Eltham quickly discovered with Bridge St. Locals who owned cars must have loved the luxury of cruising up and down that piece of blacktop in their vehicles.

As a result, Eltham began ‘tar sealing’ more of its streets. Neighbouring Eltham County Council and other authorities began doing the same, and for a short time Taranaki boasted the best roads in New Zealand.

This attracted local body representatives from all over the country to travel to the region to see first-hand the benefits of what became known as ‘tarmacadam’ or the shortened ‘tarmac’, and to begin improving their own streets and roads the same way.

These days, Eltham is very proud that it was first in New Zealand to have a sealed street – a small distance away on King Edward St it even has a large mural depicting Bridge St with its flash new tarmacadam and no dust.

Life goes on though, and although tar-sealing made rugged and water-resistant roading, it doesn’t happen anymore. That’s because the gasworks that for more than a century up to 1980 produced millions of litres of tar throughout New Zealand, have closed. And anyway, it has since been found that you really don’t want to use the stuff, because tar has an extremely high polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) content and is very carcinogenic.

It’s been replaced with fossil fuel-based bitumen and bitumen emulsion – also called asphalt - but interestingly the road-building process remains roughly the same. Crushed stone and chips are rolled onto a road surface before being sprayed with either the hot bitumen or cold bitumen emulsion, to create what we know as chip seal.

Trouble is, in New Zealand this chip seal can be coarse, particularly on regional roads and highways where traffic volumes are lower, and this can result in a lot of road noise in the interiors of some cars, especially higher performance models with their bigger wheels and tyres.

Models such as the Kia Cerato GT.

As the GT badging suggests, this vehicle is the performance version of a Cerato range that has recently undergone a minor mid-career facelift. While the LX, LX Plus and DeLux versions are all powered by a 112kW/193Nm 2.0-litre engine, the GT has a 1.6-litre turbocharged and direct injected engine under its bonnet that develops 150kW and 265Nm.

This engine, which powers various other performance vehicles produced by the Hyundai-Kia conglomerate, is mated to a seven-speed dual clutch automatic transmission that can also be operated using paddles on the vehicle’s flat-bottomed steering wheel.

While the other Ceratos have more conservative torsion beam rear axles, the GT has a sportier and firmer-riding multi-link rear suspension. And while the other models have 16-inch or 17-inch wheels shod with 55 series tyres, and GT has 18-inch alloys with lower-profile 225/40 R18 Michelin Pilot tyres.

Brakes are bigger, too. While all the Ceratos have 284mm solid discs at the rear, the GT has 305mm ventilated discs at the front compared to 280mm versions on the others.

On the inside the GT boasts leather sports bucket seats at the front, the driver’s version of which is power adjustable eight ways, and the pedals are alloy. Sporting touches on the exterior include LED lights front and rear, daytime running lights, chromed dual exhaust tips, and red accents all round including in the grille and the centre of all four alloys.

It all adds up to a look that is surprisingly good, considering the Cerato’s hatchback styling is quite conservative anyway. I think what contributes to that look in a big way is the larger wheels and tyres, which really fill the wheel arches.

But those 18-inch tyres do generate road noise on our coarse chip seal. During our drive to Eltham to check out Bridge St the tyre roar was pronounced, and it reminded me of something I’ve been banging on about for years – that bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to tyres.

Big wheels might be appropriate for high-speed driving on the likes of a German autobahn or on high-quality road surfaces in such countries as South Korea or Japan, but that’s often not the case on New Zealand’s coarse chip seal.

That’s not the fault of the cars, but the material that New Zealand puts on its roads. But unless there’s a lot of noise suppression aboard a car, the resultant road noise can be just too loud.

During that drive, another feature of the Cerato GT quickly became apparent – its firm ride. The Kia’s chassis is a lot stiffer than the other less sporty Ceratos, the downside of which can be a lumpy drive on Kiwi road surfaces which are often not in the best condition.

But the upside is the handling, which is very good thanks to a combination of that suspension tune and the multi-link rear.

The hatchback’s T-GDI engine is very good, too. A combination of the multi-link rear suspension and this turbocharged unit is already aboard other Kia and Hyundai product on sale in New Zealand, and in the Cerato GT’s case the engine develops 150kW and 265Nm.

The engine sound is quite raspy in a sporting sort of way, which is appropriate because it makes full use of the Cerato’s lightish1385kg kerb weight to provide spirited performance – I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a hot hatch, but its certainly a warm one.

This is particularly so when a Sports mode is chosen in the vehicle’s Drive Mode Select – the other modes are Normal, Eco and Smart.

That’s the point of this vehicle; despite the additional engine and road noise and the stiffer ride, it is easy to have fun with it. I certainly did. But, that ride and noise levels mean the LX, LX Plus and DeLux models are more appropriate for family use.

Interestingly though, the efficiency of the 1.6 turbo engine does mean it is more economical than the 2.0-litre normally aspirated engine that powers the other Ceratos. Its official consumption under the WLTP system is 7.6 L/100km whereas the others claim 8.2 L/100km.

During my time with the vehicle I was able to get the consumption down to the low 6’s – but not for long; time in the Sport mode and some enthusiastic driving using the paddles on the steering wheel soon put paid to that.

For its price, the Cerato GT offers as an impressive small hatch. It’s beautifully built, fitted with all the safety aids, chassis balance is great, and that turbocharged engine and twin-clutch automatic provide an enjoyable level of performance. But keep it on the seal, OK? And even then, expect a firm and often noisy ride