Hyundai Performance Division & High-Performance i20 Confirmed

By Ganesh

Hyundai has set its mind to change its image of a mild, family oriented brand to a modern, aggressive and sporty one that younger buyers will relate to. To achieve this Hyundai will soon have a dedicated performance division of its own. Much like Nissan's Nismo, Honda's Mugen, Toyota's TRD, Mercedes-Benz's AMG and so on.

Also Read: Hyundai i20 WRC Concept Car At Geneva

The South Korean automaker has already taken the first step towards this end, by the way of setting up its first WRC motorsports team and related infrastructure. Hyundai's new motorsports division is located in a new factory near Frankfurt where teams turn road going i20s built in India into WRC spec i20 racing machines.

hyundai wrc i20

Hyundai's first WRC season will be in 2014, where it will race the current gen i20. The technology and experience gained through motorsports will be transferred into a performance oriented version of its next-gen i20 road going car, the first of its breed. The next-gen i20 is already under development and will arrive globally in 2015.

Hyundai's performance oriented i20, expected in 2015, will be the start. Eventually, performance versions of other road going cars from Hyundai will become available. Similar to how Nissan develops Nismo tuned Micra, Juke, 370Z and GT-R.

Also Read: Nissan Nismo Micra

hyundai i20 wrc car

"I think whatever performance is on the WRC car it always makes your performance better," Hyundai Motorsport team manager Alain Penasse told Drive.au. "You attract and hold the attention of the younger people, which is the aim of Hyundai. So in the future they have decided they need to do something to make their brand younger and more dynamic."

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Article Published On: Saturday, October 19, 2013, 13:21 [IST]
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