hyundai

This weekend's big game plays host to ads by six automakers. Here's a preview of what you can expect.

Audi Highlighting the Audi A3 TDI's win for Green Car of the Year at the Los Angeles auto show, Audi's ad shows the Green Police checking up on recycling and energy use. Audi released the ad on the Internet this week. Watch it on YouTube.

Volkswagen VW plays up the age-old game Punch Buggy, where the first person to spot a Beetle would get to punch the other person in the car. The advertisement updates the game … Read more

DETROIT--Green is all the rage at the Detroit auto show, but a different hue emerged in the Blue-Will plug-in hybrid concept car that Hyundai revealed Monday.

The car can run solely on its lithium polymer battery for a range of 20 to 40 miles, said Scott Margason, director of product planning for Hyundai Motor America, in an interview here at the North American International Auto Show. Like the Toyota Prius, perhaps the best-known hybrid car, the Blue-Will has an engine that's directly connected to the drive wheels and that runs in parallel with the electric motor.

Hyundai wouldn't … Read more

Debuting at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show, the 2011 Hyundai Sonata is the first vehicle to feature Hyundai's "Fluidic Sculpture" design language--"Fluidic Sculpture" obviously being market-speak for bulbous and swoopy.

The Sonata will debut with a 2.4-liter gasoline direct injection engine and a pair of six-speed transmissions, one automatic and one manual. However by the end of 2010, a turbocharged 2.0-liter engine and a Hybrid Blue Drive model are set to join the lineup. However, the Sonata will not get a V6. This is a four-banger only party. The 2.4-liter … Read more

Even as we approach an age of efficient and emission-free electric cars, the internal combustion engine still shows room for improvement. Hyundai just announced its 2.4 Theta II GDI (gasoline direct injection) engine, the first instance of the automaker using direct injection with a gasoline engine.

Although there were some early adopters, automakers began replacing carburetors en masse with injection technology around 1990. But most cars today still rely on port injection, the version of this technology that was originally introduced. Direct injection squirts fuel directly into the cylinder, without going through an intake manifold first.

The advantage of … Read more

This last week saw yet another big auto show in the form of the 2009 SEMA Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show ran from November 2 to Friday November 6, and boy, was there a ton of eye candy for us car enthusiasts. However, the SEMA Show was not open to the public--only auto industry insiders were allowed inside these doors full of what SEMA refers to as "automotive specialty products." This video is a teaser of some of the many automotive delights that were on display at this year's event.

Here we go … Read more

Last year, Hyundai was all about the Genesis sedan at the 2008 SEMA Show. For 2009, the newer and sportier Genesis Coupe steps to the forefront for its share of the spotlight. Hyundai had no fewer than four Coupes in its booth and there were dozens more scattered across the rest of the show floor. If that's not enough to convince your that Hyundai's got a hit on its hands, we're not sure what will.

Among Hyundai's offerings were the wild midengine V-8 RM460 Genesis Coupe and the mild Hennessey Tuning School Coupe. Also in the … Read more

We knew that a stripped down version of the Genesis Coupe 2.0T was coming. We knew that it would be dubbed "R-Spec." Now, we know that it's going to cost $23,750, $3,000 cheaper than the fully loaded 2.0T Track model.

The R-Spec features all of the performance of the Track model. Under its hood is a 210-horsepower turbocharged engine that puts power to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual transmission and Torsen limited-slip differential. (Hyundai's five-speed automatic transmission is not available on the R-Spec.) The R-Spec also features the same Brembo … Read more

At the 2008 SEMA Show, Rhys Millen Racing (RMR) massaged one of the first available Hyundai Genesis Coupes into a wild, wide-bodied racer with a huge turbo and some crazy aero. For 2009, RMR plans to raise the bar with its RM460--a midengine, V-8-powered Genesis Coupe.

RMR started by yanking out the Coupe's stock 2.0T engine, as well as the rather useless back seats. After a good deal of bending, fabricating, and welding, the new engine bay (located just behind the driver's seat) was ready for the RM460's new ticker. Rather than reusing the stock I-4 … Read more

When Hyundai announced that it would be debuting a 2-liter turbocharged version of its rear-wheel driven Genesis Coupe, I thought to myself, "The tuner crowd is going to go crazy over this."

Not even a year later, it appears that I was correct. Case in point, GReddy performance parts will be bringing a tuned-up Genesis Coupe 2.0T--dubbed the "GReddy X-Gen Street Genesis Coupe"--to the 2009 SEMA Show packed to the gills with performance parts and spinning its flywheel to the tune of 350-horsepower.

Bear in mind that the stock Genesis 2.0T packs only … Read more