Kona N Confirmed ...for Europe

[flatisflat]

Per Road and Track, the Kona N is confirmed with the Veloster N powertrain (but with no manual transmission) and thus far only confirmed for Europe.
They say the Tucson N is confirmed for a U.S. release, which makes me doubt they'd do both in this market (also no surprise that the larger of the two CUV's is what has already been confirmed).
I was actually getting a bit excited about the Kona N potential, but if I can't row my own, then it's a no-go.

[CB]

@flatisflat The market for a manual Kona N is legitimately no people. They're making the smart move on it.

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@flatisflat Hyundai has form on restrictions rolling out N models. They don't like to create overlaps in the range. So Oz gets the N in i30 hatch and i30 fastback (ie. Elantra) but not the Veloster N. Likewise, we are likely to get the Kona N but not the Tuscon N...though if the Santa Fe gets the N treatment (or, for that matter, the forthcoming BoF dual cab) then we'll be having those...

[flatisflat]

@cb Absolutely the smart move; I have no argument against that. Still sad. For me. The one person that may have actually considered it.

[flatisflat]

@silentbutnotreallydeadly Per R&T, we're already set to receive the Tucson N; so perhaps exactly what you're saying, just the reverse.

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@flatisflat Exactly.

Here's a local quote from GoAuto about what's going down:

Due to arrive locally by the end of the year, the Kona N is the final piece of the puzzle in HMCA’s plan to launch eight new N or N-Line products in 2021, the others being the facelifted i30 N hatch, new i30 Sedan N, pint-sized i20 N, Sonata N-Line, Kona N-Line and Tucson N-Line.

All the N-Line stuff is just cosmetic packages (at least) with perhaps some suspension tweaking at most. No go faster bits...

[Cé hé sin]

@flatisflat
Saw one of the new (non N) Tucsons the other day. It was slightly interesting, a low bar in this section of the market.

[TexturedSoyProtein]

@flatisflat The manual in the Veloster N is mediocre enough that when I drove one my reaction was, "I think this car will be better once the DCT arrives."

[3point8isgreat]

@texturedsoyprotein The manual is indeed mediocre. But I've only heard bad things about the hyundai/kia DCTs.

Granted id take a mediocre manual over any automatic.

[3point8isgreat]

@silentbutnotreallydeadly I thought they had bigger engines too. But it looks like they just get spicier engine tunes on their existing top trim engines.

[flatisflat]

@silentbutnotreallydeadly
(I totally just now realized that in your original post you said, "in OZ", which definitely changes things RE: which country / market is getting what and how I replied. My bad. )