#ElantraGT

This one’s a bit of a bummer, though it’s not surprising. The 2021 model year will bring a Hyundai model lineup bursting at the seams with crossovers, but there’s apparently no room for a lowly compact hatchback.

The sun in that photo is setting, not rising.

Offered since the early 2000s, the five-door version of the Elantra sedan (actually a wholly different car underneath) has met its end in the North American market.

Though it plays second fiddle to more popular hot hatches from Honda and Volkswagen, Hyundai’s Elantra GT is not without a generous list of attributes. Space, inoffensive styling, and value play a large role here, even if the N Line variant (formerly Sport) can’t match the output of its boosted rivals.

For the coming model year, Hyundai aims to ensure the Elantra GT attracts more eyeballs.

Long-time readers of this site know that your humble author was once a salesman at an Infiniti dealership. At the time, I’d have much rather been a salesman at a Lexus dealership. Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t get my wish, because being a Lexus salesman is an actual career that enables people to buy luxury homes and save for retirement and hold their heads up in their community. If I’d started working for a Lexus dealer back in 1994, I’d still be working at a Lexus dealer today, which means I would’ve missed out on a career that took me everywhere from the Ritz-Carlton in Wolfsburg to the podium at Sepang to the county jail.

You know, I’d be okay with that. Being a Lexus salesman would have been great. There would, however, have been one continual annoyance: explaining to people who bought the original 1990 LS400 for $35,000 that their replacement 1998 LS400 was going to cost a minimum of $53,999. That’s a hefty bump for what was basically the same car. I suspect that a lot of first-gen LS400 buyers ended up buying an ES300 for their second Lexus; by 1998, the well-equipped sticker on that car was $35,000 or slightly over.

There’s nothing quite as disappointing as finding out that your budget doesn’t allow you to purchase the modern equivalent of the car you already have. But that’s the situation facing today’s “Ask Jack” participant.

Hyundai unveiled their entire 2014 Elantra lineup at the LA Auto Show with the aim of introducing to the world their much-improved elements of fun driving.

By pure happenstance I ended up with an Elantra GT immediately after r eviewing the 2014 Kia Forte sedan. As I said last week in the Forte review, the Elantra and Forte are related, but this isn’t a case of Korean badge engineering. It’s far more complicated. The Forte is the new kid on the block while the Elantra has been around for a few years. At this stage in life, Hyundai is trying to inject vitality into the Elantra name by adding new models. First we got the four-door sedan, then a two-door coupé followed by the Veloster which is just a four-door hatchback Elantra (yes, I know Hyundai calls it a three-door, but I know better). If you’re confused by door counts, the new Elantra GT is a five-door. Say what?

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?