The best front-drive performance cars come from Hyundai?

To the Track!

On track the Elantra felt composed and pushable, although maybe not quite as urgent as the Veloster. The Elantra adds about 3 inches of wheelbase to the Veloster, and that could explain why it had less of a willingness to jump into a corner–but understand that we’re talking about fractional differences here, and track and environmental conditions could have had just as much of an effect. 

Overall, the Elantra N was an exceptional track companion, with fantastic steering feel and a perfect steering ratio for the capability of the chassis. It’s a car that does an excellent job of feeding info back to the driver and responding to inputs consistently and exactly the way a chassis is supposed to. 

While that sounds like something every car should do, that’s not always the case. And even when it is, communicating the dynamics to the driver is frequently a muddled game of telephone that requires learning a specific language to understand. The Elantra, on the other hand, just speaks physics.

This extremely communicative nature makes things like corner entry under trail braking a real joy, with excellent feedback coming from the brake pedal, the wheel and the chassis itself. And remember, we’re heaping this praise on a car with factory alignment settings and 240tw tires. Throw some camber and better rubber into the mix, and performance will only improve.

Regarding lap times, the Elantra trailed behind the Veloster N by about 0.6 second, with the Civic Type R evenly splitting the difference between the two cars. Diving deeper into the data, the Veloster appears to be making up the time during corner exit in a couple of slower sections, being quicker to get the power down out of tight corners. 

These two traces show how the Veloster N (red trace) slightly outpaces the still impressive Elantra N (blue trace). The Veloster N was faster through the high-speed kink (1), resulting in a faster exit and higher top speed at the end of the next straight. Both cars, however, had excellent entries into the constant-radius Turn 8 (2). And despite the Elantra’s listed additional torque, the acceleration curves (3) look identical.

That may be due to the shorter wheelbase helping the car rotate earlier, but it’s also easily explained by track conditions, debris and rubber at exits, tiny differences in the programming of the electronically controlled limited-slip diffs of each car, the phase of the moon or a number of other factors. The rest of the data traces are unsurprisingly identical, and you’d be excused for not knowing they were different cars.

We mentioned earlier that despite the rather minimal power and torque discrepancies, acceleration was identical, and this was true in most cases. There were a few laps where the Elantra outdragged the Veloster through a second- and third-gear acceleration zone, although the thrust through the third- and fourth-gear zones was practically cut and pasted between both cars. With a true power difference, we’d expect the opposite to be true, so we’re chalking up our testing discrepancies to margin of error.

Fractions of a Second

And really, that’s the whole story with the Elantra versus the Veloster. While one turned a faster lap than the other–a 1:21.49 versus a 1:22.08 around our 1.55-mile track–they did it at different times of the year at a facility that had seen 18 months’ worth of weather and events in between. And the data looked all but identical save for a few tiny morsels we had to hunt for.

Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning that we tried the N Grin Shift system. When activated, it allows for 20 seconds of overboost and supposedly alters the shift algorithms in the eight-speed DCT. And, uh, we couldn’t tell the difference, and neither could the data. Acceleration curves looked the same and shifts appeared just as quick. 

We should mention that the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park, our official test track, doesn’t have any 20-second straights, so we had to pick our spot for what we thought would be the most fruitful activation of the system. Regardless of where we tried it, though, we noticed no real acceleration difference on the FIRM’s short straights. 

[How we track test cars and what the numbers mean]

Perhaps Road Atlanta’s back straight or Road America’s long uphill start/finish straight would be more opportune venues, but we saw no measurable benefit. It’s a cool-looking button, though.

R or N?

Comparing the Elantra N’s on-track data trace to the Civic Type R’s shows more differences than with the two Hyundais, but they’re still more alike than different. The Honda’s slightly faster lap time of 1:21.79 seems to be mostly a result of superior thrust early in third gear, launching the Civic off the FIRM’s medium-speed corners with a bit more authority. 

On shorter straights where we were holding third, the Civic held the advantage, but as soon as a third-fourth shift was required, the Elantra’s quick-shifting and closer-ratioed eight-speed DCT erased and then overcame the disadvantage. Again, we’re talking about tiny fractions of a difference here that we really need data to discern, not giant, noticeable differences.

Photography Credit: Chris Tropea

The conclusion here is that the Elantra N–at an MSRP of $32,150–is every bit as capable as anything else in its class at a far more favorable price than some of its most notable competition. In autocross and time trial competition, it will likely end up classed against the Civic Type R, and our best guess is that the Honda will still be the top choice for autocross for the immediate future due to its superior initial off-corner thrust and its platform’s deeper knowledge base. We won’t be surprised to see Elantra Ns snatching a few trophies in increasing numbers in the national Solo scene as more cars enter the marketplace, however. 

For time trial use, we think things may be even closer–particularly when the Hyundai is equipped with the DCT, as quicker shifting and additional ratios make up for its lack of rated power. And with a tuned ECU, that power advantage the Honda holds off the showroom floor could evaporate altogether, making the Hyundai a top competitor against the Type R.