Hyundai Elantra - style personified

The design language for the latest Elantra was ‘fluidic sculpture’, which translates into a car that looks like it’s been designed by earthly elements such as wind and water.

The lines that caress the car look like desert sand that’s been plagued by winds leaving a creased, ribbon-like design flick across the front and rear wheel arches. The effect is a C-segment sedan that out-styles its competition by a long shot. The Elantra has a reduced drag coefficient of 0.28cd and the increase in aerodynamic efficiency in turn reduces the fuel consumption.

That exterior design of fluid lines flows through to the interior as well, with swooping lines running from the doors right around the dashboard and then sloping down as they head past the front fascia and down the transmission tunnel. The whole effect creates a cocoon-like atmosphere for both driver and passenger. The dash itself contains a nice hint of cloth fabric that separates itself from the vast black hole of rubber that manufacturers these days insist on calling ‘upscale’ or ‘premium’.

As I mentioned earlier the Elantra sprung a bit of a surprise on us, nobody expected it to be in the performance department. I’ll start with the 0-100kph figure we achieved. 7.8 seconds. Putting that into perspective, it ranks right up there with your old Opel Superboss and more recently the likes of turbocharged hatches such as DS3 Sport and Mito Quadrifoglio; this from a C-segment sedan no less. The reason behind this is a lightning quick throttle response that gives you access to most of the Elantra’s power capabilities in the first half of the throttle pedal range.

‘Light-weight’ engine

The 1.8 Nu engine, named after the 13th Greek letter, produces 110kW and 178Nm and, thanks to a 33.6kg reduction in weight of the engine, the entire car weighs in at 1176kg. That kind of power to weight ratio is normally reserved for vehicles with S or R badges. The real test of how it uses this power though is the key and for that we have…

With the rather unassuming speed the Elantra GLS (TI) carries with it, you might occasionally find yourself in need of some of this handling stuff. First off, the steering is a bit over-assisted making inputs less accurate and feedback slightly numbed. This doesn’t mean the whole experience is ruined though, it’s rather playful when provoked and has all the safety that front-wheel drive cars are renowned for. As for everyday use, it’s more suited to this than the sporty nature of its straight line speed.

To sum up the Elantra’s handling, it would be soft but not waterbed soft, the type of ride your everyday driver would want. The front overhang is quite short so speedbumps don’t scrape the bumper, and if the missus is driving she can attack the kerbs with ferocity without dealing out costly injuries to the bodywork.

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