Hyundai has chosen to build performance machines off the basis of what they already have to offer us. While we love the Accent, Elantra and Sonata when we want a great car to drive which is fun on the road, these cars aren’t exactly sporting the goods to head out to the track and take on the rest of the small performance based cars that have been part of the fun we’re starting to see on the market. Seeing other automakers offer their impressive new performance hatchbacks or small sedans on the road made Hyundai decide it was time for them to get into the act as well.
The creation of the new sub-brand for the N cars starts out with a new i30 model that will be offered. This is a car that will be built off the Elantra GT model and made to be a performance player. Even though we don’t have the numbers and haven’t seen exactly what this car will be, the team at the N-division has been working hard to bring this car test track so they could work on different aspects of the performance.
On the performance part they have been looking to make sure the sound is perfect, which is an important part of the experience, but more important than that are the handling and suspension aspects of the car. The handling has been worked on to give this car the ability to take on curves and turns in style. Hyundai understands that racing and driving fast are not just about straight line speed and the other small competitors in the market are all performance models that have the handling you need to take on any track in the world while whipping around the curves and turns that are offered.
In addition to the handling, the suspension and stiffness of the car has to be upgraded to make this a car that can stick to the track and give you the rid you’re looking for. As we see from the video below, the new i30 looks like it can handle the road and the track, but so can all the other Elantra based models. This new car is possibly going to use a naturally aspirated engine or it will have a turbo engine, we aren’t quite sure yet what this car will have under the hood, but if it’s going to compete with the big boys of small car performance, the engine will have to be turbo powered.
Calling this car an i30 might just be confusing considering the lineup from BMW, but seeing the car on the road or on the track isn’t as confusing. The i30 is all Hyundai and it looks like this little car will be a lot of fun to drive when it finally does come to the market. You can enjoy seeing some of the performance looks and the feel of the car in this video. This could be the next car that has the best lap in a car from this class at Nurburgring, but that’s still a ways off from Hyundai.
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