Letters Of Note// Hyundai Taps The Fast Part Of The Alphabet To Challenge The Honda Civic Type R With Its New Veloster N

You know an automaker is serious about performance when it stakes a claim on a piece of the alphabet.

- Eric Tingwall

Letters are fast, particularly once you move past frumpy B and lackadaisical H into the latter two-thirds, where M, R, and S transform mass-production ennui into factory-built adrenaline. That’s exactly what we have here: two ordinary economy cars overengineered into track-capable front-wheel-drive hot hatches, brought to us by the letters N and R. Their speed, grip, and theatrics had us cackling like Elmo.

Born under the care of ex–BMW M bosses, Hyundai’s nascent N division honors both Namyang—home to Hyundai’s Korean R&D center—and the famed Nürburgring Nordschleife. The division’s first export to the States, the three-door Veloster N comes bearing a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four, six-speed manual transmission, and powder-blue seatbelts. The Veloster N starts at roughly $28,000 and with 250 horsepower. However, potential buyers should consider the estimated $2000 Performance package on our test car mandatory equipment. It adds 25 horsepower, electronically adjustable dampers, an electronically controlled limited-slip differential, larger brakes, an active exhaust, and an upsize from 18- to 19-inch wheels. Beyond that, the options list looks similar to the Honda Civic Type R’s, which is to say that you can choose from a limited selection of paint colors.