The New Hyundai Elantra

The 2016 Hyundai Elantra upgrade is here and my does it look gorgeous!

The Elantra has been one of my personal favorites from the Hyundai Motors line-up that is sold to the Indian market. The fluidic redesign basically made it look like the Verna’s more powerful and better looking big brother. The 2.0 litre petrol engine gave it plenty of kick and the features list made it quite a package at that price range. Of course, the majority of the Indian market shifted towards the crossover segment but this car is still an icon among the fans of the comfy, fast and aggressive looking sedan.

The new Elantra is all those things still, but now its even better at them. For a start, the look of it. Now, its debatable if its an improvement or not, I think it is, but everyone will agree that it looks DAMN fine. The new hexagonal grille up front gives it a distinctive touch from the class-competitors, while also bringing an Audi ‘feel’ to it. The rear-end too has got a fresh look with new tail-lights that give it the deceptive look of an businessman’s saloon car.

That’s all I can say about the exterior for now as I haven’t seen the real thing up-close yet, but I have been going through a couple of reviews from magazines and channels who’ve been able to drive it. So, according to those, there’s been plenty of tech updates as well, including quite a few build improvements to make it more sturdier and an improved suspension set up too. Also, it seems they’ve avoided the issue about stability at speed that they face with the Verna models.

The new Elantra also gets a ‘Drive Mode’ system to adjust the amount of steering effort needed and alters throttle response and engine mapping if you put it in ‘Sport’ mode. Now that’s something I’m excited to try!

Now lets look at what the numbers say about this upgraded badass city-sedan. There will be two engine variants, the 2.0 litre petrol engine and the 1.6 litre diesel engine. There are further sub-variants for different features, which you can check on the brochure.

Here’s the important stuff : The NU 2.0 litre petrol engine promises 152 bhp max power at 6200 rpm, with a max torque of 19.6kgm@4000rpm. The 6 speed transmission, available in both manual and automatic should provide ample opportunity to explore the engine’s capabilities. Hyundai says the MPi tech should also allow provide satisfactory fuel economy, especially in ECO mode.

The 1.6 CRDi diesel engine offers 128 bhp on paper with a max torque of 26.5kgm between the ranges of 1900-2750 rpm, which should provide some accelerating fun. You can even get great mileage out of the engine if you choose to drive that way.

The new Elantra has a starting price of INR 12.99 lacs for the 2.0 litre petrol model, and INR 14.79 lacs for the 1.6 diesel variant (both prices Ex-showroom Delhi).

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All images are from Hyundai’s official website.