http://www.ochyundai.com: April 2010

No one will ever write erotic poetry about the Hyundai Sonata. No courting suitor ever promises a woman, "Darling, I'll give you the moon, the stars, a Sonata with cloth seats..." Snooki from "Jersey Shore" will be named secretary of agriculture before a Sonata crosses the field at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance classic-car show. These things are appliances, disposable widgets, destined to wind up as brightly colored cubes of crushed and fused metal, the unlamented scat of our mobility society.

But for now, be amazed. Be amazed that any company can put together a car with this much raw, unmitigated content—a 2.4-liter direct-injection four cylinder with variable valve timing on both cams; six-speed automatic with manual shift mode; iPod/USB/AUX jacks and Bluetooth; stability control and smart ABS; airbags and power amenities galore—wrap the whole thing in a 10-year powertrain warranty and push it out the door for $20,195. That's ridiculous, ridonkulous. This is the sort of scorched-earth pricing that makes other car makers consider a change in strategic direction. Perhaps there are some openings at Hardees?
Inside the Sonata

The 2011 Sonata—the sixth generation of the nameplate in the company's history—extends Hyundai's business plan in the U.S. market, which is summed up in the phrase "overwhelming numerical leverage," which I just made up. If you lay it out and compare the Sonata with its mass-market, suburbo-drone, I-wish-I'd-stayed-single competitors—Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Chevy Malibu—the case for the Sonata is summary. On paper, at least, it's just more car for the money.

Consider the intersection of these monster numbers from Sonata's spec sheet: 198 hp (200 hp in the dual-exhaust SE model) and 35 mpg highway. The four-cylinder Honda Accord LX serves up 177 hp while delivering a highway mileage a full 4 mpg less than the Sonata. The Honda is also $1,660 more dear.

I'm not saying the Sonata is a better car. Ah, hell no. I'm saying that if you set aside intangibles—things like brand modulus, styling, materiality, and the ineffable sense of quality you get when you touch and use engineered things—the Sonata is too persuasive to ignore. In a way, Hyundai's strategy is a brilliant adaptation to a car-buying environment increasingly driven by online data comparison. If you're an overscheduled public-school teacher and you need a new car, what are you going to do? You're going to fire up the computer, go to Edmunds.com or cars.com, plow through the numbers and conclude—not unreasonably—that the Sonata is the best deal out there. Then you're going to go to one dealership, the Hyundai dealership, take the Sonata around the block and think, Yeah, OK, nice.

Let me just run this by my sales manager.

Of course, all cars are in some sense political, since country of origin and economic policy are inextricable. And here the story turns a bit melancholy. The Sonata's awesome pricing occurs at the whip end of a long chain of factors, including the fact that it's built in a place with low wages, a low standard of living and an indifferent attitude toward workers' rights. Someone really should take up a collection for Montgomery, Ala.

WSJ's Rumble Seat columnist Dan Neil takes a test-drive in Hyundai's latest Sonata, which he says feels like a luxury product at a reasonable price.

Hyundai, the world's fourth-largest car company by units sold, is hotter than the hinges of Hades right now. It posted a fivefold increase in profit in Q1 of 2010, to a tidy $1 billion, on the recovering world market and favorable currency-exchange rates. For obvious reasons, a stronger Japanese yen helps the Korean car maker enormously in the U.S.

Hyundai's ambitions for the Sonata transcend the value equation, however. Like the larger and equally overachieving Hyundai Genesis sedan and coupe, the new Sonata is about elevating the image of the brand.

Enter styling.

This is a nice-looking car, and for all the blathering about remote keyless entry and the like, the styling—thoughtful, attractive, premium, by several degrees above the call of duty—is the feature that impresses me most. Wrought in what Hyundai calls "fluidic styling"—trademark alert!—the car does have a handsome, hydraulic wholeness to it, like water flowing over a river rock. The bold "light spear" along the side (the shallow draft under the accent line broadens as it goes back along the side of the car, creating a spear-like shadow) plays nicely against the back-drafting energy of the roof line. A little bit of Volkswagen CC in there, a little Mercedes-Benz CLS. The most sophisticated exterior touch is a thin chromic bow that runs from the headlamp to the C-pillar along the belt line, a brightwork meteor across the car's firmament. Lovely.
Rumblings
2011 HYUNDAI SONATA GLS

Base price: $20,195

Price as tested: $21,765

Powertrain: 2.4-liter, direct-injection inline four cylinder with variable valve timing; six-speed automatic transmission with manual-shift mode; front-wheel drive

Horsepower/torque: 198 hp/187 pound-feet

Length/weight: 189.8 inches/3,250 pounds (est.)

Wheelbase: 110.0 inches

Cargo capacity: 16.4 cubic feet

EPA fuel economy: 22/35, city/highway
Business Is War

And Hyundai just nukes the competition with a svelte, sophisticated mid-size sedan featuring a high-tech engine, league-leading fuel economy and a crazy-low price. Hyundai's strategy: victory through superior (numerical) firepower.
Retaining Fluid

Hyundai's California design studio has penned an intriguing, even compelling body style, in an idiom it calls "fluidic styling." Note the chromic pinstripe arcing across the car, from headlamp to C-pillar. Not easy and not cheap. Other manufacturers would have left such a premium design flourish on the cutting-room floor.
Does Oz Have Something for the Tin Man?

The Sonata's features list is long and impressive, but the gestalt of the car remains a little hollow and in places the car feels too thinly spread. Yes, the Sonata is less expensive, but the Honda Accord feels more investment-grade.

Deconstructing the styling a bit: The Sonata strikes me as an aspirational placeholder kind of car, the sort of choice that will speak to people on their way up to benchmark luxury brands like Lexus, BMW, Mercedes. A luxury-car starter kit, if you will. Those sorts of buyers will equate style—the evident and obvious exertions of style rippling across the Sonata—with pride of ownership. It's worth noting that Hyundai will soon introduce the Lexus-like Equus sedan to the U.S. market—figure the early $60,000s to start—and, knowing that, I can't help seeing the Sonata as the bottom rung of a luxury ladder Hyundai is building, year by year.

Inside, the Sonata is roomy, comfortable and has some interesting choices of materials—the door panels are a kind of plasticized taffeta—but overall the car's interior is more conventional and less surprising than the exterior. The central console pours down from the upper dash between the front seats in a graceful cataract of switches and displays. However, the plastics are hard, the seats feel a little thin and door latches and switches feel and sound hollow. If I were the chief project engineer for the Sonata...well, first of all, I'd hire an engineer to replace me. But then I'd put more substance, more structure, behind these touch areas.

Nowhere does the program of radical economizing show more than in the engine sound. For all its high-tech direct-injection efficiency, this thing has a positively antique sound, with a valve click so pronounced it almost sounds like a diesel. I actually took a flashlight to my test car to see if perhaps the exhaust manifold gasket had sprung a pinhole leak, or else it had inadvertently sucked up a set of castanets. If this thing is in spec then, please, somebody send the company a box of hearing aids.

Two hundred horsepower absolves a lot, however, and the Sonata GLS gets down the road with dispatch, if not wild abandon. This is not a performance car by any means; still, the Sonata feels reasonably spry, with nicely controlled body roll, accurate steering with good feedback, and assured braking. The six-speed automatic, with the shifter in manual mode, helps the car shed its cast of servile domestication when the road opens up and the driving mood darkens.

The common midmarket midsize sedan executed uncommonly well, the Sonata is a one-car price war, a line in the sand, daring competitors to cross. Which they won't, will they? I am agog at its value. And if you have a four-letter yardstick with which you measure cars, C-A-S-H, you can stop your search here. Ditto if your yardstick says M-P-G. But I'm still not quite in love with Hyundai, still not inspired to write that love sonnet. I wait for the Equus, quill in hand.

From MotorTrend....Best In Class goes to the Hyundai Sonata
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/sedans/112_1002_2011_hyundai_sonata_se_test/index.html

"It racks up enough best-in-class points to whoop the competition without breaking a sweat. On the road, we found the Sonata to be a strong contender with its bold new styling and a new sporty demeanor".

From Edmunds... http://www.edmunds.com/hyundai/tucson/review.html

"Based on our experience, it is clear that the Hyundai Tucson received ample attention in the area of build quality".

From Car and Driver... http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/car/09q2/2010_hyundai_genesis_coupe_3.8_v6-road_test

"On sale since March, the Genesis coupe is a revelation".