Hey, remember way back in 2013 when Hyundai said they were going to launch a performance sub-brand one letter of the alphabet down from BMW’s? You don’t? Well they are. And at the Frankfurt Motor Show this week, they reaffirmed their commitment to performance brought to you by the letter N.
“The result of intensive testing and product development, the sub-brand N builds on Hyundai Motor’s successful motorsport experiences and technology capability to drive future performance-oriented and race-track-capable models forward and bring ‘the most thrilling winding road’ fun to customers who truly love cars,” Hyundai said in a statement.
Which is all well and good, as Hyundai is currently making some of the best cars on the market. It’s great to see them finally get serious about the high-performance game because as good as Hyundais are, speed and handling has never really been their thing.
The only problem is that Hyundai didn’t give us much to go off of at Frankfurt. The examples of the N brand on display include the thing you see above, the Hyundai N 2025 Vision Gran Turismo virtual racer (which looks like a Hyundai LMP1 car 10 years from now); the Hyundai RM15 concept car, that 300 horsepower mid-engined Veloster from a few months back; and the i20 World Rally Championship prototype.
All of those cars are cool, but none of them are real. And while the rumor a few months ago was Hyundai would launch N with a new twin-turbo Genesis Coupe, that was nowhere to be found either.
I kind of wish Hyundai had held off on this announcement until they had something solid to show us, like a Genesis N or some all-wheel drive Veloster N or something equally nutty.
Either way, Hyundai says they’re doing this for real, but they said the same thing two years ago. I don’t doubt them. I just wish they’d get on with it.
Also, I want to see them race in the World Endurance Challenge now.
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.