Will there be any surprises for Geneva this year? Probably not based on everything being leaked. The latest in this line is the Hyundai Veloster Turbo. Using a turbocharged version of the standard car’s 1.6 it pushes out 183BHP but also to 270Nm of torque up from 167Nm. Tony Whitehorn, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor UK, commented: “UK drivers tend to prefer more torque from a lower engine speed, so our European engineers have specified a set-up that still provides a substantial increase in power – up from 140 ps to 186 ps – while also delivering the desired low-end torque.  The resulting package is very competitive against the performance of competitors such as VW Scirocco and Vauxhall Astra.”

0-60 is cut to 8.4seconds, which seems a tad slow, but this seems a touch slow for such a powerful car. This could not reflect the “real” 0-60 time to keep in line with Hyundai’s low insurance groups. A similar thing happened to the old Toyota Corolla T-Sport which officially did 0-60 in 8.6 seconds despite having the identical 190BHP as the Celica 190 and only weighing marginally heavier, could not get anywhere near its official 7.2s 0-60 time. Owners club forums and meetings have shown it to be much closer to the Celica 0-60. I would be very surprised if the real world Veloster Turbo time is closer to high 7s than mid 8s.

Other performance upgrades include a faster steering rack and improved suspension. Looks wise it has got some mean looking arches and bumper kits. The exhausts are also large circular pipes rather than the trapezoidal centre ones of the NA model. Economy is unconfirmed but expect 1 or 2 MPG lower than the NA version (43MPG), and a couple g’s co2 less due to it being a turbo (148g/km on the NA).

Pricing has not been announced but if done correctly this could be a bigger version of the Suzuki Swift Sport. Cheap, exploitable power, fun and importantly different. Looks superb to me. Mark another win up for Hyundai, but this time for a real drivers car.

Image / Hyundai UK