Many automakers have a high-performance sub-brand.
Some have legendary reputations built by decades of racing success and the kind of lust-worthy models that make the front pages of car magazines over glittering horsepower numbers. Think BMW’s famous M division or the Mercedes AMG shop.
Others are smaller operations but win loyal fanbases. Purists don’t label them tuner shops, but they produce high-performance models that get special emblems and limited production runs. Think Honda’s R badge or Volkswagen’s… well… R badge.
Hyundai’s is called N. It’s new enough that it’s still establishing a reputation, but models like the Elantra N and Kona N have impressed critics and won grudging respect from enthusiasts. Their calling card is adjustability. Some tuner shops choose all the settings they think are best to control the car’s performance. N lets you play. Hyundai N models allow the driver to set everything from the suspension’s stiffness to the exhaust note’s volume.
What all these in-house shops have in common is their approach. They take the manufacturer’s ordinary cars and try to modify them into something extraordinary.
The new kid on the block is full of ideas. Hyundai’s N team is planning a high-performance electric car.
First Reports Starting to Appear
Test drivers from Car and Driver and Motor Trend got their hands on the upcoming N version of the Hyundai Ioniq 5. A high-performance version of our 2023 Best New Model? We can’t wait.
Car and Driver calls it “a watershed moment for Hyundai’s fledgling N performance division.” MT just says it’s “insanely fun.”
Neither publication got the specifications out of Hyundai, but both say it will boast more than 600 horsepower (more than even its Kia EV6 GT corporate cousin). The driver can shift torque distribution “between nearly full front or rear bias,” C&D says. That should let drivers create everything from a grippy all-wheel-drive rally rocket to a slippery drifter.
Simulated gear shifts and engine noises can be switched on or off. There’s even an electronic drift mode that, MT says, uses “delicate, almost imperceptible electronic interventions working to keep the Ioniq 5 N arcing smoothly sideways through a turn.”
Both magazines tested a pre-production model in camouflage, so Hyundai hasn’t finalized the car yet. We expect its public debut at July’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in England.
