“The cus­tomer wants the world for 20k” . It’s a com­mon phrase in the con­fines of a new car deal­er­ship, and until now it’s been a chal­lenge to jus­tify the hefty price tags of some of the new cars on the mar­ket. Lets have a look at what 20k plus tax can get you these days. Per­haps a mid level Honda Civic, or a fully loaded Hyundai Accent GLS? Depend­ing on the time of year, you might take advan­tage of some rebates and get your­self a Kia Sorento or 4 cylin­der Hyundai Santa Fe. The fact is, that 20 grand is a healthy bud­get, and with the speed tech­nol­ogy is rac­ing by us, it’s about time a man­u­fac­turer loaded a car up with some of the afford­able ameni­ties pre­vi­ously avail­able only on higher end sedans and seen in con­cepts. It’s about time that a man­u­fac­turer rewarded the hard work­ing sin­gle mom, and the recent uni­ver­sity grad for stick­ing it out for 4, 5 or more years for an edu­ca­tion! The 40 year old that wants a sports car after finally rais­ing those 3 young kids shouldn’t have to take a sec­ond mort­gage out to get one! Now, who do all these peo­ple have to thank? And for what? Well, they can thank Hyundai for the all new Veloster!

It’s almost a given that you’ve encoun­tered one of these on the road, fol­lowed by a “what is that!?” and then a “really, it’s a Hyundai!?” It’s that Honda CRX-esque Coupe +1, with wheels that look after­mar­ket, and an exhaust that blends in so well with the back end you hardly notice the dual pipes taunt­ing you. Now, mind you the Veloster 1.6L is hardly a sports car, boast­ing just 138 well tuned horse­power, but Hyundai hasn’t mar­keted it as such. Rather, it’s a great look­ing, prac­ti­cal and fun to drive piece of machin­ery that won’t break the bank. It comes in sleek, mature colours or bright, loud colours, suit­ing every type of dri­ver on the road today.
As a per­son employed to sell Hyundai’s newest child, I’m slightly par­tial to the car. But one can’t ignore the enor­mous value it brings to the table. For just over $20k CDN ($20994 incl. Freight) a stick shift famil­iar dri­ver can take home a 6 speed “base” model, which I’ve aptly named the “entry level” model, only because the term “base” implies “basic”, which the Veloster is none of. An entry level model will reward its owner kindly with a long list of fea­tures includ­ing power every­thing, AC, key­less entry with prox­im­ity key and push but­ton start, fog lights, 18” alloys, heated seats, 7” touch­screen with backup cam­era, hands­free Blue­tooth, trac­tion con­trol, Eco drive, 4 wheel disc brakes, and, well, I think you get the pic­ture. For a mod­est $3500 more, a panoramic glass sun­roof can be added with the “tech” pack­age, which also includes a nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem for that 7” touch screen, nice alloys wheels, leather wrapped steer­ing wheel and shifter, black pol­ished accents through­out the inte­rior, cloth and sim­u­lated leather bol­stered seats, auto­matic head­lamps, and an upgraded stereo with amp and sub­woofer. For a vehi­cle with fea­tures as abun­dant as this, a price tag of 30k more more would almost be jus­ti­fi­able, but fea­tures are just half the bat­tle as it’s not like you’ll just sit in it and play with the touch­screen, nav and Blue­tooth, right?
From the minute the key lands in your hand you’re instantly curi­ous. 9 times out of 10 peo­ple ask me “push but­ton start?”, and not only that but the prox­im­ity key means but­tons on the door han­dle to lock and unlock, and no need to take the key out from its hid­ing place. The dri­vers door swings heavy like a sports coupe should, but don’t for­get this is a 2 +1 mean­ing a sec­ond door on the pas­sen­ger side. If I remem­ber cor­rectly, Sat­urn attempted this with its SC a while back, and aside from being con­ve­nient it just stood out awk­wardly, but not so with the Veloster. The back door here blends in so nicely with the lines of the car one hardly notices it’s there at all until the real­iza­tion of it sets in. All in all, the 4 bol­stered seats are stiff, yet com­fort­able enough for daily com­mutes, plus they’re heated for those chilly Toronto morn­ings.
As you’re read­ing along, you’ve prob­a­bly noticed that the Veloster hasn’t let me down as of yet, until now. The head­room in the back two seats lead me to believe that some­where along the lines Hyundai con­sid­ered mak­ing this car a 2 seater. But this ideas was squashed and replaced with the high hopes that no one over 6 feet tall would ever need to sit in the back. The warn­ing sign on the hatch will explain their rea­son­ing for this, but sim­ply put; any­one sit­ting in the back seats shouldn’t do so if and when the hatch needs to be opened or closed, or else they will suf­fer an unfor­tu­nate run in with the back glass!
But who cares about head­room in the back seat when you have all these amaz­ing toys in the from seats right!? From a dri­vers per­spec­tive, bang on! And for the price, any­one need­ing to squeeze into the back for a ride can surely afford their own Veloster, so prob­lem solved!

The first few sec­onds in the dri­vers seat almost always feels cool! After crouch­ing into your cock­pit, ana­lyz­ing your sur­round­ings and start­ing you car with the push of a cen­trally located “start” but­ton, you watch with antic­i­pa­tion as the dials light up, the engine comes to life and the large, colour­ful touch screen wel­comes you. As you put the trans­mis­sion into reverse you’re assisted by a backup cam­era dis­played on the LCD screen, warn­ing you of obsta­cles within a cou­ple meters of your back bumper, elim­i­nat­ing the need to twist your neck every time you back up. Then it’s into drive (or 1st gear) as you head off towards your des­ti­na­tion, be it the cor­ner store or a week­end road trip guided by the optional nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem.
I’ve yet to encounter an unsat­is­fied test dri­ver. And I’m even more hard pressed to find an unhappy owner. From my per­sonal expe­ri­ence, it’s the fea­tures that got them into the car, but the ride, per­for­mance and fuel econ­omy that keeps them dri­ving around with that excited feel­ing in their chests.
The engine is just 1.6L and 138HP paired with either a 6 speed dual clutch auto­matic (DCT) with pad­dle shifters, or a 6 speed man­ual gear­box. The two com­bine nicely, allow­ing dri­vers great con­trol, and achiev­ing an impres­sive 40mpg or around 6.5 L/100 km, thus mak­ing it a top choice for daily com­muters look­ing to save at the pumps. Now, I’ve had the plea­sure of dri­ving both trans­mis­sions, and I found that the stan­dard is quite reward­ing. The throws are short, and the clutch is just about perfect-not too stiff, not too soft either. The power ban sits just over 3500 RPM, with a red­line of 5500 PRPM, and within there pickup is good. Now switch to the auto­matic, and you’re still able to pull of “cool” with the help of the pad­dle shifters nes­tled in behind the steer­ing wheel. Need to pass some­one? Just a flick of your fin­gers and your down­shift­ing in mil­lisec­onds, no switch­ing to “Sport Shift” nec­es­sary.
My stan­dard test drive route has me mak­ing a series of right hand turns quite early, so the han­dling was the first thing I noticed dur­ing my test runs. The 4 wheel inde­pen­dent sus­pen­sion is tighter than any of the other Hyundais, and allows very lit­tle body roll. Zip­ping through cor­ners reminds the dri­ver that they’re in a sportier car than most. The steer­ing wheel is thick and small, the way it should be, and when you move it slightly the car responds. If cor­ners are taken aggres­sively though, over­steer is a poten­tial in a car such as this just due to the size and weight dis­tri­b­u­tion. The inte­rior is quiet as can be expected, even with the panoramic roof in the tech pack­age. Dur­ing any time spent in this car, one can’t ignore the large, bright 7” touch screen nes­tled neatly in the dash just above the cli­mate con­trols. When I first real­ized that even the entry level came with this I was sold instantly! The screen pro­vides the con­trols for the AM/FM/XM/CD/AUX stereo, as well as Blue­tooth phone con­trols, iPod/MP3 player con­trols, smart­phone con­trols includ­ing phone­book and call his­tory func­tions, backup cam­era dis­play, and with the addi­tion of the tech pack­age, a full real time nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem com­plete with over 100 voice com­mands! While we’re on the topic of tech­nol­ogy, Hyundai has included (with the Tech pack­age) a 115v out­let in the cen­tre con­sole, which can power o charge any­thing you’d nor­mally plug in in your home-no more dead lap­tops, and ladies, now you can straighten, blow dry and curl your hair in cozy con­fines of your Veloster!

As emo­tional as a new car pur­chase can be, there is a prac­ti­cal side that must be addressed. War­ranty, reli­a­bil­ity and safety are among the many fax­tors that can quickly bring a pas­sion­ate cus­tomer back to real­ity. Once again, the Vel­soter stands out from the crowd boast­ing Hyundai’s indus­try lead­ing 5 year/100000 km bumper to bumper war­ranty, excep­tional reli­a­bil­ity as with the Accent, Elantra and long last­ing Santa Fe, and all the stan­dard safety fea­tures one can come to expect in a car today. Work­ing with you to pro­vide a safe trip includes a Sta­bil­ity Man­ag­ment Sys­tem which employs trac­tion con­trol and elec­tronic sta­bil­ity con­trol, advanced brak­ing fea­tures such as EBD and brake assist and 6 stan­dard airbags.
It’s been a while since a real­is­ti­cally priced car has cap­tured my atten­tion as the Hyundai Veloster has. It’s one of those cars that you can fall in love with from a photo, and aspire to own once the num­bers and fig­ures are out on the table. Aside from being a 4 seater and a bit of a niche vehi­cle, the Hyundai Veloster undoubt­edly appeals to more than a few, and at the end of the day the here at the deal­er­ship, it’s one of the few cars that sells itself, and that’s a fact that can’t be ignored, just ask any of the happy dri­vers on the road today.