Hyundai has confirmed it is considering adding a new sports car to its global portfolio of models.
The yet-unnamed car will slot beneath the Genesis Coupe but Hyundai stresses that it will not be billed as a successor to the Tiburon.
“Cars like these, such as the Audi TT, create a huge demand when they’re new but then that dies off quickly. It’s about demographics, too. The buyers of the old [Tiburon] no longer want these cars,” explained Allan Rushforth, the former senior vice president of Hyundai’s European arm, in an interview with British magazine Autocar.
Instead, Rushforth hinted that Hyundai’s upcoming sports car could borrow a noticeable amount of design cues from the PassoCorto concept (pictured) that was presented at the Geneva Motor Show last March. Penned jointly by Hyundai and the IED design school in Turin, the show car took the form of a small, low-slung two-seater coupe powered by a mid-mounted four-cylinder engine.
Rushforth, who recently left Hyundai for Nissan, did not reveal when a new Hyundai sports car could see the light that awaits at the end of a production line.
Performance Push
Hyundai has previously hinted it wants to build more performance-focused cars. The South Korea-based automaker has already confirmed it is preparing to introduce a hot-rodded variant of the new i20 hatchback aimed squarely at the Ford Fiesta ST. Designed using knowledge gleaned from Hyundai’s WRC program, the i20 N will be powered by a Veloster Turbo-sourced 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine tuned to make at least 250 horsepower.