This car can travel nearly 400 mixed city/highway miles on a single tank of regular fuel. Even at $3.70 a gallon, a fill-up of the 11.9-gallon tank costs less than $45.

The Yaris hatchback has a 106-horsepower, four-cylinder engine producing 103 foot-pounds of torque at 4,200 rpm.

The front-wheel drive Accent comes with a MacPherson strut front suspension and a torsion beam axle in back. In the SE, the front stabilizer bar is thicker than in other models, and the suspension is “sport-tuned.”

But the handling still seemed more mainstream than sporty. The same is true of the power-assisted, rack-and-pinion steering.

Headroom in the Accent’s back seat is a commendable 37.8 inches compared with 33.8 inches in the back of a Yaris hatchback. But as in many small hatchbacks, three adults sit closely in the back seat of the Accent.

I wish the car looked a bit richer or sporty. Instead, it is plain and rather uninspired, inside and out. And the tester was the Accent SE with the larger wheels and tires. Base Accents ride on small, 14-inch tires.

Still, there were features inside the test car that surprised me.

For example, the Accent SE 3-Door had a fold-down, driver-seat armrest on the right side, and there were many bottle holders and cupholders in both front and back seats.

But the round dials for the climate control system felt flimsy, and the seats — especially the back-seat cushion — had a cheap foam feel.

I enjoyed the flexibility that the hatchback offered. With rear seats folded down, I had room to stow several suitcases and boxes. Maximum cargo room measures 15.8 cubic feet vs. 14.2 cubic feet in a Honda Fit.

U.S. sales of the Accent were up 56 percent through the first seven months of this year and are on track to be the highest since calendar 2008 when more than 71,000 were sold.