Refreshed Hyundai Venue Appears

Fans of vaguely crossover-ish subcompact vehicles from South Korea’s best-known automaker will be happy to learn the little Hyundai Venue is apparently receiving mid-cycle styling tweaks. Popping up on the company’s official website for its market in India and first noted this morning by the sleuths at CarScoops, the next Venue appears to be taking a few cues from its big brother, the Palisade.

These foreign market images show a rig with a chicklet-studded grille which mimics some of the design options found in the nose of Hyundai’s current largest vehicle. The wing-like daytime running lights and turn signals once again sit just south of the hood’s shut line, moving the actual headlights into the bumper’s jowls. It seems the model will retain its unique halo lighting signature around those forward-facing peepers.

Around back, our very own Corey Lewis will be delighted to learn Hyundai has embraced the heckblende lifestyle, with a spear of LED lights now connecting the outboard taillamps. Amber turn signals remain in the lower corners of those lamps, though they do lose the distinctive diagonal details which reminded your author of the late and lamented Nissan Pulsar of the 1980s. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.

A few glimpses of the interior were shown in various videos on the brand’s YouTube channel for the Indian market, revealing a cabin that largely stays the course of the present model. Don’t expect any yoke steering or gesture controls, ok? The existing analog dashboard gauges have gone the way of the dodo bird – at least in this foreign market machine – and have been replaced with a digital cluster.

Engine choices are usually different across the pond, with Hyundai being no exception in this regard. Don’t expect to find their 1.5L diesel (manual only, by the way) in our market, nor should we really hold our breath for the 1.0L turbocharged gasser making 120 horsepower, despite its output being roughly like the engine found in North American Venue models. Around these parts, the car is powered by a 1.6L mill good for 121 horses and 113 lb.-ft of torque.

With a total sales so far this year of 10,663 units, the little Venue isn’t exactly America’s favorite Hyundai. That honor predictably goes to the Tucson, a model which has found 68,423 new owners this year, followed by the Santa Fe with 47,204 sales through to the end of May 2022.

[Images: Hyundai]