I was never a Hyundai fan to begin with
. Until one day I saw an uncle driving an Elantra at one of the TBHP meets. He redefined to many of us what Hyundai cars and more so turbocharged diesel engines are capable of. And in ways, I am glad he did. Today, there is a "small tribe" on TBHP that swears by some of the cars churned out by Hyundai, but I find it quite sad when members post comments like:
Quote:
All I'm saying is, I think Hyundai as a manufacturer is crap and is being overly glorified.
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To begin with, I have noticed a general tendency wherein people have a blocked mindset when it comes to cars. Some people can't see beyond a Honda, some Suzi, others Fiat and so on.... Honestly, I have been guilty as charged for the same. But then, one begins to learn with time.
But what comes as a rude shock is that many a times, people shoot of comments (mostly negative) WITHOUT even driving the car they are talking about. Which I feel IMO is improper and uncalled for.
Stereotyping has become the norm of the day. What if a Korean manufacturer churns out a good car amongst a horde of ordinary ones? Are we so blinded by our ability to see things that we could care less to give it a try and put out an honest review? Instead what we see happening is scores of members just rubbishing some cars off without even TD it.
Then you have the next lot, those who are so stuck up with the cars they own, they fail to notice that each car has its +'s and -'s. We conveniently, make it a point to dig out every -'ve point on a car we don't much like, then blow it out of proportion while at the same time try to neglect the -ve points in our own cars. To top it all, we find it offensive when someone else points out these glitches. But, I guess, we men work that way.
I have had the chance to live with some of these cars and how my perception of them has changed over the years.
Hyundai Elantra: I didn't even know a car like that existed until I saw it at one of the TBHP meets. Needless to say, it might not be the most attractive looking car, but wait until you see one move. It will give most 1.6 litre petrols a run for its money on the highways, comes bundled with loads of safety features like airbags, abs, ebd, traction control etc etc. I can vouch that the cars brakes are the best in the under 15L category. It handles quite well, given that its quite a front end heavy car. To put it to perspective, cmiuc's car with a bigger intercooler, Petes with added boost, clocked a best time of 2:17 on the Chennai track with me driving it. IIRC, Narain Karthikeyan did a best of 2:15 secs on the same track in a stock Skoda Vrs. How many people even think that is possible?
A diesel car, churned out by Hyundai that can handle pretty decently and go like a rocket? To top it, it gives twice as much FE as an RS would give driven at the same speeds. I have had personal instances where RS' have found it difficult to pull away with some of the Elantra's on the TBHP drives. That in itself is proof enough that its a very underrated car. One that deserves a lot more accolades than what its getting at the moment.
Lucky are the tribe who own one of these. It never lets you feel the speed, safe as a house and if you buy it from the used market, its a steal. I have had the chance of driving quite a few Elantra's during the last few years, its a wonderful car. One I am surely in love with.
This car has changed my way of thinking in so many ways. Earlier it used to be high revving petrols, how to mod them to get the most power out of them. What I realized is, after I spent a whole fish tank load of money on modding my Baleno, a Pete'd elantra could keep up with AC on and 3 people on board. All this while maxxing out the speedo and yet churning out FE figures of around 8-10kmpl wherein my Baleno was returning 3-4kmpl.
Have we become that blind to stand up and notice that this car is indeed something we missed out on? All because the name Elantra doesn't sound catchy? Or is it because its made by a Korean company?
IMO, things are not the same anymore. I wish we all could stand up and call an apple an apple. Matter of fact is, there are quite a lot of good cars out there that are being unfairly reviewed, which in return skews up the whole point of being on this forum.
Let us not go by hearsay, or make conclusions because of some preconceived notions or skewed perceptions. Drive one of these for a while and you will change the way you see some of these Korean cars. I did.
I have had a lot of people say to me "You are the first guy we have seen, who owns a fast petrol car and swears by a diesel car to be fast and fun to drive"
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Here is a pic of one of the elantra's in action.
Disclaimer: I own 3 Suzi's, my favourite list of cars at the moment (apart from my baleno) are the OHC Vtec, Elantra, Getz Crdi, Tata Xenon. It doesn't matter from which manufacturer a car comes from. What matters is how good it is.
Let us use this thread to clear some of those skewed perceptions on any car churned out by Hyundai.
PS: Next in line is the Getz Crdi. Let the brickbats and tomatoes fly.