I tossed a coin before writing this piece. It was heads, and that meant Hyundai will eventually bring their Coupe to India. Seriously, that is as good a guess that anyone can have when it comes to HMI's plans for this lovely bit of engineering. They have not had it homologated yet, and if they do, the car can be bought to India via the CBU route for roughly the price of the new Sonata. Hmm... I can already hear the comments, 'You spend Rs 14 lakh for a car with just two doors?' Coming back to the point, why are we dedicating five pages for a car that has as much chance of reaching Indian shores as the Indian cricket team winning a one-day international final? Well, to begin with, we had great fun driving it around a racing track. And then, this is our humble way of telling the suits at Hyundai that there is more to selling automobiles than making money.
That 'more' is all about passion and a certain degree of dedication that is a must-have before producing a sports car. Add the magical word called 'pedigree' and you will get the Ferrari F430. Hyundai may not have much of a sporting pedigree (despite their WRC runs), but they do have the technology and expertise in making some extremely capable automobiles – and the Coupe, now in its second generation, is just one such machine.
On that note, let me take you back two years, straight to a cold and wintry day at the Namyang proving grounds, South Korea. It proved to be a stunningly cosmopolitan place, with people from various nationalities working on various projects. I met with Turkish designers, saw the biggest wind-tunnel this side of a twister, and for a nanosecond, laid my eyes on a sports car that was under development. The second-gen coupe was being tested and it looked, sounded and moved in the most fabulous manner possible. Hyundai knew that there were journalists from around the world visiting and they were, in all probability, giving us a fleeing glimpse of their upcoming sports car.
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