Here in Brazil, Toyota had to bow to pre-market pressure and lower the price for their Etios. Hyundai goes the other way and is betting that they will be able to command higher prices. In their first try to get at the juicy meat of the Brazilian market, Hyundai has launched their exclusive-to-Brazil small car, the HB20.

Starting from R$32,000 (US$16,000) and reaching an astronomical R$48,000 (US$24,000), Hyundai is claiming the car has two main differentials. According to Hyundai’s dedicated HB20 site the car acts as

“a model built in Brazil for Brazilians. It has Hyundai’s fluidic sculpture design and unrivaled standard content; the New HB20 is striking, modern and sporting.”

Hyundai indulges the buyer: even the lowliest trim will be “complete” by Brazilian standards. In other words, even the base car comes with air conditioning, assisted steering, double frontal airbags and trip computer (according to the folks over at Brazilian enthusiast site bestcars.com.br).

The Hyundai will be the first locally produced Brazilian car to sport an interesting three-cylinder, 1.0L, 12v with 80hp and can run on the local concoction known as gasoline and ethanol. As the engine is the same as the one in the imported Kia Picanto, I warn Brazilian shoppers that although it’s probably one of the best 3-cylinder motors out there, you will be reminded of its presence by the lawn-mower-like noises it emits

From R$37,000 (US$18,500), Hyundai will offer a 1.6L 16v engine good for 128hp. It is the same engine as the one present in the Veloster sold in Brazil, but it has also been adapted to run on ethanol. With this trim level, you get the same content as in the 1.0 car, but ABS is standard.

Remember the 92-95 Honda Civic hatchback? I know Murilee does. How about an Elantra GT 3-door?

What’s a Mustang? We know, but it’s not an easy question to answer. A Mustang is…a Mustang. It’s so thoroughly itself that there’s no need to define it as a variant of someone else’s car. All truly great cars are like this. Competitors might meet and even beat them in this or that regard, but until they develop identities of their own they’ll never possess the same allure. The Europeans practically have such cars in their DNA. The Americans and Japanese have stumbled over the goal line from time to time. The Koreans…well, the Koreans are still new. So what’s a Genesis Coupe?

Call it synchronicity or call it conspiracy: 2015 is drawing closer, the year when several large global automakers will begin full-scale launches of hydrogen-powered automobiles. Developing new powertrains being costly with unassured payback, automakers form alliances to share the cost. And alliance of Daimler, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota to jointly promote hydrogen use would be surprising, they usually are otherwise engaged. However, the four join hands, forces and cars for a grand hydrogen tour through Europe.

I find more Porsche 928s, Alfa Romeo Alfettas, Buick Reattas, and Datsun 810s than I do first-gen Hyundai Excel s during my travels in high-turnover self-service wrecking yards, in spite of the 1985-89 Excel selling in tremendous quantities in the United States. You saw these things everywhere on the street until about 1992, at which point the import sections of American junkyards became choked with low-mile Excels that crapped out in not-worth-fixing fashion. I believe the first-gen Excel was the worst motor vehicle you could buy new in the United States in the 1980s, and maybe for the entire fourth quarter of the 20th Century. Yes, even worse than the Yugo.

In just a few short years, Myanmar has gone from Southeast Asia’s pariah state to the new darling of investors looking for the next emerging market.

Hyundais will be in short supply this coming month. Workers in Korea refused to make them and went on strike in July and August. Hyundai and the unions reached a tentative wage deal today, “ending the second-costliest strike in the firm’s 45-year history,” as Reuters reports.

Anyone can write a world-class review of an interesting car. Something like a McLaren M4-12C or a Ferrari 458 lends itself well to Clarksonian prose, full of overwrought similies and hyperbolic commentary on the driving experience. Writing a great review of an utterly boring, utilitarian car that captures the reader’s attention? Now that takes work.

Hyundai doesn’t get every bit of a car perfect before introducing it. No auto maker does. But Hyundai does pay attention to feedback from reviewers and owners, and often upgrades its cars in response to criticism. Only in its fourth model year, the Genesis Coupe already has had its interior upgraded twice.

New exterior

Last year I recommended the Hyundai Elantra Touring for those who “ want a simply designed car that’s easy to see out of, capable of toting a bunch of stuff, solidly constructed, and fun to drive.” A replacement was on the horizon, and I wondered if it would retain the ET’s increasingly uncommon strengths. Well, the 2013 Elantra GT is now here, and it performs well enough to rank above other new compact Hyundais. But what about its predecessor?

“That is how I drive. Flat Out.” So says the infamous, Miata-blocking Koenigsegg/GT2 driver in the trackday community’s Most Favorite Video Ever. As a journeyman instructor and track rat, I encounter fellows like this all the time — but just as often, I see reasonably talented drivers in small-caliber hardware who take a perverse pleasure in holding up equally talented students in Corvettes and the like. When I discuss their behavior with them, they will always say, with a sort of wounded, defensive pride,

“It’s more fun to drive a slow car fast, than it is to drive a fast car slowly.” My response is always the same:

“Yes, but it’s the most fun to drive a fast car quickly, so next time, I need you to point us by before the Climbing Esses.”

The Genesis 2.0t R-Spec has the most power, the lowest lap times, and the most ridiculous name in our little group. It’s the fast car of the group, and it’s fun to drive fast, too. Why’d it finish second?

In our second installment, we take the Scion FR-S to the track, along with the heavier, but more powerful Hyundai Genesis 2.0T and its spiritual antecedent, the Mazda MX-5. Oh, and there are special guests from Japan and America.

Please welcome Jeff Jablansky, our newest guest writer and resident messhugeneh

Attempting to carve into the curves of the Ramon Crater with a machine as dull as a Hyundai Getz is like trying to slice sashimi with a plastic knife. Or performing surgery with knitting needles.

Last week we saw how Great Wall reached Bulgaria with promising results, and this week is the moment you’ve all been eagerly waiting for: the famous World car sales Roundup, June edition! You can check out previous world Roundups here for March 2012 (“Has the Hybrid era started for good?”), here for April 2012 (“Big change coming from India”) and here for May 2012 (“GM and Toyota Etios make headlines”).

World Roundups not your thing? No worries, you can visit 168 countries and territories in my blog, go on, you know you want to!

So in May we talked General Motors and Toyota, this month we talk Ford and Hyundai, with the Focus and Santa Fe now making headlines…

What do you do if you lose market share and can’t stand it anymore? You deliver what the market wants. Hyundai is trying to make up for losses in China with a (so far) China only car that slot between the Elantra and the Sonata, says Reuters.

Sometimes designers become super stars in the car biz: just ask that dude who made the Ford GT, or the other dude responsible for the Chrysler 300. I am sure both made other vehicles which they truly hated. Perhaps the 300’s designer shares some amount of blame for the last Chrysler Sebring? I am sure that Ital Design’s Giorgetto Giugiaro has the same problem, but Hyundai wrote him a check and he made it happen. Quite honestly, the original Hyundai Excel here in the USA wasn’t a bad car at all. Bad looking, that is.

And honestly, after walking around this example at a historically savvy Hyundai dealer (next to a Lamborghini Dealership that bored me after 20 minutes) I suggest to you, dear reader, that the Excel sold so unbelievably well on both price and design. Because this machine could look much, much worse.

One thing I’ve noticed after decades of prowling high-turnover self-service wrecking yards is the increasing average age of junked Hyundais. The first-gen Excel started showing up in junkyards in large quantities when the cars were about five years old (i.e., the worst car available in North America during the second half of the 20th century), and by the mid-1990s they were all gone. These days, most of the Crusher-bound Hyundais I see are more like 15 years old, about halfway between the average age of junked Chryslers and junked Hondas. The Tiburon has been around since 1997, and this is perhaps the third one I’ve seen in this setting.

If it weren’t for auto bloggers, the question of a separate Hyundai luxury brand would have been dead and buried long ago. But auto bloggers, with a desperate need to generate news out of thin air, won’t let the story die. 224,000 Google results later, and we finally have a definitive answer.

A gentleman named Louis Bird is suing Hyundai because his 2011 Elantra isn’t getting the claimed 40 mpg that Hyundai’s ads apparently tout. Bird is being supported by a group called Consumer Watchdog, and if that rings a bell, maybe it’s because TTAC has dealt with them a few times in the past regarding Hyundai.

I may occassionally mock the enthusiast infatuation with wagons and hatchbacks, it’s only because they’re not such a big deal to me. Two-box compact and midsize cars (not crossovers or SUVs) are everywhere in my locale, to the point where they go unnoticed. But this is one worth getting excited about.

“If you want a Veloster Turbo, you can buy one right now – it’s called the Genesis Coupe.”

That’s what Hyundai CEO John Krafcik told us at the launch of the Veloster last year, when asked about the possibility of a performance version of Hyundai’s distinctive-looking hatchback. Less than a year later, we have a boosted Veloster and a Genesis Coupe that’s better than ever.

This is the first installment of a three-part series on Hyundai’s three newest offerings, the Elantra Coupe, Elantra GT and Veloster Turbo.

As I casually sauntered over to the gunmetal Elantra GT, I my mind began to ponder Jack’s piece on the Lamborghini and the politics of masculinity, until a Hyundai PR rep stopped me in mid-daydream. “Oh, you guys are driving the Elantra Coupe this morning.”

JP writes:

Hi Sajeev,

I though myself out of asking this question, then your asked for more questions, so…What’s the best way to sell a beat-up 2002 Hyundai “Satan Fe” without feeling guilty about it?

Not so long ago, I married into a family with an irrational preference for Hyundais. In order of purchase (all new): 2002 Santa Fe 2.7L AWD, 2003 Santa Fe 3.3L FWD, 2006 Santa Fe 3.3L FWD, 2009 Azera, 2011 Tucson. All bought with about as much consideration as I put into buying shoes. The upside: hand-me-downs.

Welcome to Car Fight, the comparison test with no basis for comparison. In this edition, we join Editor-In-Chief Bertel Schmitt and Editor-at-Large Ed Niedermeyer in sunny Southern California, where they’re arguing over which sedan makes a better $35k-ish commuter chariot, the 2012 Hyundai Azera or the 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid.

Niedermeyer: Well, Bertel… you asked for it. You were the one who thought your overpriced, buzzy little hybrid could take on my BuickBimBap on the uncompromising streets of L.A. You picked this Car Fight, and now you’re going to lose.

Finally, the real story on the Hyundai Veloster Turbo pricing is here. $22,725 (including the $775 destination fee). A 6-speed automatic is another $1,000.

This is the companion piece to yesterday’s pilot episode of our new video series. Did you watch it yet? If you didn’t, why not? Don’t you know that my son needs to eat? Have you no heart? Have you no sense of decency Sir, at long last? — JB

Context, to distort the phrase, is a hell of a drug. Anyone trying to make a purchase decision on this fully-loaded, $33,875 (in the United States), high-power, impractical, fully-loaded, sporting coupe will need to put their face down against a mirror and snort context with both nostrils open. In this brief review, we will first go cold-turkey, evaluating the Genesis Coupe’s on-track performance without referring to the competition. When that’s done, we will take a white-hot hit of context and try to determine if the pug-nosed Hyundai is worth buying.

Yesterday, I learned a very valuable lesson in Journalism 101, having published erroneous information before having it confirmed.

Finally, our long-promised video series makes its debut, with our very own Jack Baruth at the helm, doing what he does best; bullying PR people into paying his obscene room service bill putting today’s sports cars to the test on a closed circuit.

Derek’s capsule review of the 2012 Hyundai Azera gave the car a resounding “meh”. My own impressions weren’t going to be quite so positive, but then something happened: I test drove the Buick LaCrosse and refreshed 2013 Ford Taurus. Suddenly a $37,000 Super Sonata didn’t seem such a bad way to go.

(N.B. Photos of the Lacrosse and Taurus are in the gallery below)

Jack Baruth’s proposal to grade cars by their ability to hit 80 miles an hour may have some merit in the land of Cheeseburgers and V8s, but it represents a conundrum for those of us who can hardly get to 80 mph. Case for the defense: the new Hyundai Eon, sold (so far) only in India and the poorer parts of Southeast Asia. Like my part: The Philippines. The Eon is a fantastic car for us poor people who enjoy getting 60 miles per gallon of dubious gasoline on our regular commute with the air conditioning going full-blast. But hitting the big 8-0 is not in the cards. Not unless you have half-a-minute to kill and some Excedrin.

But then, that’s not the point. 60 mpg is the point. To this effect, Hyundai pulls out all the stops to hit that magic number.

BMW turns more and more into the world’s purveyor of engines. If recent talks are successful, BMW motors could power Hyundai cars. This according to a report in Germany’s industry publication Automobil Produktion.

The magazine reports that Chung Eui-Sun, Vice-Chairman of Hyundai Motor Company and only son of und Hyundai CEO Chung Mong-Koo, has been in Munich to start the talks.

Which cost more these days? Car or building?

I had a 2013 Hyundai Genesis R-Spec Sedan as my proverbial press fleet mule this past week.

The car gave me flashbacks. The quiet of the 5.0 Liter V8 engine reminded me of the first time my neighbor bought a brand new 1995 Lincoln Town Car. That car offered folks a whisper quiet ride, and enough space and luxury to make a Mercedes E-Class envious.

The dirty little secret of that time was that I enjoyed driving that Lincoln more than I did the last of the W124’s.

See, the miseries of commuting always took a huge bite out of my driving enjoyment. Instead of feeling the bumps and hearing the honks, it would have been nice to be cocooned in a big beautiful quiet world that the last of the good Lincolns offered.

The 2013 Hyundai Genesis sedan brought that world back to my daily grind. If only for a brief moment. So with that in mind… I wonder…

Sometimes it’s a little difficult to style a car in a certain genre. Case in point, the “entry level” luxury car segment. And not because the cars are rubbish or the designers simply phoned it in, but because so much equity is on the line…on a budget! This is no audacious Maybach Exelero, here’s an ordinary platform given a few dimensional tweaks, a touch of class and a lot of tacked on “visual presence” in hopes of high volume (compared to an Equus) and high margin (compared to an Accent) successes. And while this Hyundai has one of the toughest acts to follow–after its Sonata brother blew the roof off the world of family car design–it isn’t a dog.

But it’s a good thing Hyundai never called it the Hyundai Grandeur here in North America. There’s nothing especially “grand” about it.

The original Santa Fe used a 2.7-liter V-6 that was supposedly developed by Porsche — and the joke went that the Germans traded that engineering for the Santa Fe’s styling so they could “Design” the Cayenne.

That story no longer applies. The new Santa Fe has homegrown world-class engines and styling that beats the Porker six ways to Sunday.

Car companies severing ties with Iran are making headlines. After GM’s new partner PSA decided to stop sending parts to Iran, Hyundai “has quietly ended its business dealings with Iran, where it had extensive operations,” says the New York Times. The Times chalks this up as a win for “United Against Nuclear Iran, an American group that has advocated economic sanctions.” UANI keeps a list of companies that still do business with Iran, it also lists companies that have withdrawn from doing so. Hyundai has received a check mark in the “withdrawn” list.

Detroit is looking nervously at that list. Let’s have a look as well.

Over the past few of weeks we have traveled to Chile and Georgia, Myanmar and Bolivia, the last 3 destinations being all your fault: you asked for it! Now I felt I had to interrupt this elan of generosity and hold on going to countries you asked for just for one week.

I have to rectify a very important ranking: the best-selling cars in the world.

You may remember earlier this year I wrote an article detailing the Top 10 best-selling models in the world in 2011, based on an article published on Forbes. Which I had a few issues with. Well a few official figures, a lot of work and a couple of long nights later, I now have a ranking that looks much more like reality…and is much bigger: the Top 100 best-selling models in the world in 2011!

All this after the jump.

But wait, if the world is too much for you to handle today, that’s fine because I have sales info for 160 countries for you to visit in my blog, all one by one. So don’t be shy and click away!

Back to the world.

For the first time in recorded history, Hyundai is using true hypnosis to sell a car. Hypnosis expert Peter Powers designed an ”Online Hypnosis Experiment” for the new Hyundai i30. All you need is this computer, headphones, and 15 minutes of your time. Do NOT perform this experiment while at work!

Hyundai’s Santa Fe crossover is long overdue for a re-design, and when pressed for details, all that CEO John Krafcik would tell me was that it looked like a larger Tucson. He was right.

Major carmakers around the world had their eyes on Hyundai’s growing muscle for a while. In the business, you call that benchmarking. Now, the benchmarking sensors sound alarm: Hyundai announced yesterday that its February global sales jumped 28 percent from a year earlier.

Hyundai’s press materials list the 2012 Azera’s competitors as “…traditional large sedan sales leaders such as Maxima, Lacrosse, Avalon and Taurus.” But those cars were on the minds of exactly no one at the Las Vegas launch of the 2012 Azera. Only the Lexus ES350, the market’s leading 4-wheeled sensory deprivation tank, was on the lips of the assembled journos when talking about the Azera’s competition. Hyundai didn’t give us much time with the car, but one thing was clear.

If you want a $3,500 discount off of a Hyundai Genesis, or $4,500 off a Hyundai Equus, you can get one – but only if you operate a livery car service. Hyundai is putting a lot of cash on the hood for their two luxury sedans, as they hope to capture some market share left by the cancellation of the Lincoln Town Car, America’s favorite “black car”.

Europe gets the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback and a Cruze wagon – and now Hyundai does too. The i30, also known as our 2013 Elantra GT, gets its own wagon version, dubbed the Tourer.

“If you want a Veloster Turbo,” quipped Hyundai CEO John Krafcik, at September’s launch of Hyundai’s oddball, front-drive Veloster hatchback, “you can buy one right now. It’s called the Genesis Coupe.” The Veloster Turbo ended up materializing at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show – and so did a new Genesis Coupe. Apparently, Hyundai never planned on making a Veloster Turbo until after the car’s launch. But they did plan on a refreshed Genesis Coupe, and a brawnier Veloster means that the Genesis gets to move up in power and price.

At $66,900 the 2012 Hyundai Equus is the most expensive Korean car I’ve ever driven.

Speaking at the Chicago Auto Show, Hyundai’s John Krafcik told Fox News that more crossovers, particularly the three-row kind, are going to be a feature of Hyundai’s product lineup in the near future. But in the land of the manual, diesel station wagon, Hyundai’s European head has some exciting plans involving turbochargers, small cars and dual-clutch gearboxes.

Would you believe that the first-generation Hyundai Excel is now one of the rarest of Junkyard Finds? It’s true! The 1985-1989 Excel was so incredibly terrible— in my opinion, even worse than the Yugo— that just about every example in North America was dead and crushed by about 1995. In fact, in recent years I’ve seen more Crusher-bound Mitsubishi Cordias than early Excels. The closest I’ve come was this ’91 Hyundai Scoupe, based on the second-gen Excel and nowhere near as wretched as its predecessor.

Ah, the unbearable lightness of being Hyundai! The Elantra GT has arrived, looking quite sleek, quite desirable, and clocking in at 2,784 pounds. That’s 151 pounds lighter than the next-best player in the segment — Mazda’s similarly Tyson-faced Mazda3 — and
well ahead of the Focus and Golf. The point was driven home by a little show-and-tell, as seen above, to which the Chicago media reacted with thunderous applause. Hear me now, believe me later, and remember it when you are shopping for your next car: The Elantra GT is the lightest car in its class.

The Elantra Coupe? Well…

The last time we got an Elantra GT was in the early 2000s, when Hyundai brought over a quirky five-door that resembled the Mazda6 hatchback more than the re-badged Hyundai i30 you see here. Now dubbed the Elantra GT (rather than the Elantra Touring of the previous i30), the Mazda3 and Subaru Impreza just got a new challenger in the 5-door compact segment.

With 39 mpg highway and 33 mpg combined, the 2013 Hyundai Elantra coupe may not get the same gas mileage as its sedan brother, but it injects a new entrant into a very slim field of compact, affordable two-door cars.

Hyundai may really, honestly launch its own luxury brand. In a way, at least, perhaps

For years, Hyundai has been going back and forth over on question: Luxury brand or not? Imitate Infiniti? Do it like Lexus? A la Acura? This conundrum produced millions of Google hits, but otherwise led to nothing. Hyundai may finally cave in and do it. Hyundai’s U.S. sales chief Dave Zuchowski told Automotive News [sub] that such a move could be in the offing. Why? Customers are well ahead of Hyundai and already created a new brand called “Genesis.”

Said Zuchowski:

About a month and a half ago, a group calling itself “Consumer Watchdog” targeted Hyundai in what we indicated could be a shakedown operation. Their claim: Hyundai is gaming the EPA tests. Or faking them. I’m not sure, really. To get to the bottom of it, I set up a thinly veiled excuse to drive to another state and seduce a gorgeous single mother real-world test of the Elantra’s capabilities. I was satisfied by the results, but the folks at Consumer Watchdog, by contrast, were just getting started…

The website for midwives the voice of union activists Labornotes reports that a South Korean Hyundai Motor worker set himself afire Sunday after management refused his request to slow down the line. The 44-year-old unionist, Shin Sung-hun, is in critical condition. According to the site, Shin poured paint thinner over and set fire to himself .

With spotty Internet coverage at Cobo, some of the photographs and stories created for TTAC’s readers during the day are just now making it our desk. So, here are some comments on the Veloster Turbo and Genesis Coupe from Speed:Sport:Life’s Byron Hurd:

With the Hyundai Veloster getting a 201 horsepower turbocharged engine, the Genesis Coupe needed some love. Aside from the visual changes, the Genesis Coupe gets a power bump across the board, as well as chassis tweaks.

Jack has already e xpressed his displeasure with the Evoque being named winning another Truck of the Year, but his blood pressure won’t be rising just yet. The Evoque, along with the Hyundai Elantra, just took home the North American Car and Truck of the Year awards.

Despite constant denials during the press event attended by Ed and I (“If you want a Veloster Turbo,” Hyundai’s John Krafcik said, “go buy a Genesis Coupe,”) Hyundai will debut a turbocharged version of their Veloster coupe at the Detroit Auto Show.

In our whirlwind journey across the planet, over the past couple of weeks we stopped in South Africa, Zimbabwe, New Caledonia and Iceland. This week I will make it easy for you and will cover the entire world all at once…

Yes it is possible.

Now if this is way too much for you to absorb, that’s ok too because I have sales info for 160 countries for you to visit in my blog, all one by one. So don’t be shy and click away!

Back to the world.

Forbes has recently released its estimated list of the world’s best-selling models in 2011. As I spend my time counting cars all around the globe I’m sure you can imagine how hard it was for me to mask my excitement when I discovered that list…

Yes but.

There are a few things in their list that I am not too sure about…so follow me please over the jump.

Editor’s note: be aware that the images are extremely large, in order to show off TTAC’s rare opportunity for amazing photo shoot locations.

What makes a flagship? It’s a question that gets to the heart of one’s philosophy as a car reviewer, and no better example exists to explore the issue than Hyundai. Here in the US, Hyundai’s unquestionable flagships are the large, rear-drive Genesis and Equus, well-equipped traditional luxury bruisers at a value price. And though these plush-but-understated cars sell well enough in these economically uncertain times (and they certainly help Hyundai embarrass the likes of Cadillac, which still lacks a true, large, rear-drive flagship barge), they don’t completely fit with the brand values that Hyundai has ridden to prominence across the globe. They’re not wildly efficient, they lack Hyundai’s dramatic “fluidic sculpture” design language, and they’re dreadfully conventional in light of Hyundai’s professed mission to promote “New Thinking, New Possibilities” in the automotive space. Indeed, they’re almost the last throwbacks to Hyundai’s old image of slightly stodgy cars that simply beat the competition hollow on value.

But if we look past the undeniable market logic to offering the Genesis and Equus in the US, it becomes clear that Hyundai has another flagship that almost perfectly captures the reasons the Korean brand has become such a force in the global car business in recent years. Though it might not be the right flagship for the US market, the Hyundai i40cw is far closer to representing the platonic ideal of Hyundai’s brand than any other car the brand offers. And as such it’s also just a damn good car.