Automaker renderings of upcoming models typically foretell those cars’ exact shapes about as reliably as moon cycles predict economic fluctuations, but it’s looking like Hyundai has had enough of distilling excitement down to conformity. The Korean automaker has released two expectedly edgy renderings of its 2011 Sonata ahead of the car’s official unveiling on September 10, and we’ve concurrently found a quartet of photos on a Korean site that show those images to be nearly spot-on.

For just a minute, forget about slalom speeds and skid pad Gs. Forget about track testing and torque, forget about overhead cams and final-drive ratios and focus on what an SUV like the 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe is really supposed to deliver. Its true test is in how it handles the rigors of weekly shopping trips, bar mitzvahs, birthdays, daily commutes and the occasional trip to Grandma's house.

Golden rays of California sun twinkle through the palms, and play atop smooth black pavement along the ocean side as the day comes to an end. Two surfer gals still in their bikinis and waist wraps nap in the backseat while their beaus exchange a fulfilled nod to each other as they crank up the music.

He stared at our 2006 Hyundai Azera Limited a little too long and he knew it.

When we met his glance, he laughed in disbelief and embarrassment. "That's the best Hyundai I've ever seen," he said, almost choking right there in the Best Buy parking lot.

Why We Bought It
We were blown away by the Hyundai Sonata's performance in our comparison test against the best-selling Honda Accord and Toyota Camry midsize sedans. With a self-imposed $22,000 price limit, we were able to ramp up a Sonata with a more powerful engine and a long list of standard features, including a premium stereo package. For the same money, the Accord and Camry could only offer four-cylinder versions with cloth interior.

Being tethered behind a monstrous motor home lumbering toward Las Vegas has always been the Hyundai Accent's role. It's the car retired revelers use to scour the Vegas Strip for a $6.99 prime rib special. Other Accent faithful include broke students, the unemployed and the former management of Enron.

"Koreans are never satisfied," said Shi Hong Choe. "We are always working, always improving. If I see something out of place, I cannot rest until it's corrected."

It's employees like Mr. Choe, Hyundai's senior vice president of vehicle test and development, who are enabling the Korean automaker to challenge the Japanese Big Three — Toyota, Honda and Nissan — one carefully engineered new model at a time.

The New York Auto Show is fast becoming a busy event with automakers left and right introducing their new 2012 model line up of vehicles.

The 2012 Hyundai Veloster made its debut this year at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show. It warmed our hearts in terms of looks, but its 138 HP leaking out of the Gamma 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine chilled us to the bone. Shouldn’t a "sports car" have a little more push that that? Hyundai seems to think so which is why they have decided to turbo it up with the Hyundai Veloster Turbo edition.

A long-neglected segment in the U.S. market, the subcompact scene has suddenly gotten very interesting. First came Honda's second-generation Fit, which set the bar for the other contenders. Then, Ford's Euro-cutie 2011 Fiesta made its stateside debut, followed shortly thereafter by its distant cousin, the Mazda2. All along, Hyundai's Accent soldiered on as competent, if somewhat unremarkable, contender in the segment. Its competitiveness in the U.S. market was also hampered by the lack of a five-door configuration.

Those eagerly looking forward to our next hybrid family sedan comparison have to wait just a bit longer -- this Hyundai Sonata Hybrid we recently tested is a pre-production model.

Mainstream compact cars are the oatmeal of the car world. They're high in fiber, low in taste, and great at reducing cholesterol and carbon footprints, but not very good at raising endorphin levels. At least that's what focus-group participants told Hyundai market researchers. Buyers apparently lamented the boring nature of the workaday Corollas, Sentras, Civics, Mazda3s, and their ilk -- hotrod versions like the Civic Si and Mazdaspeed3 notwithstanding. So Hyundai decided to shake things up a bit by scrunching the Sonata's highly successful "fluidic design" onto this smaller platform.

The Tucson continues to show its potential as a viable alternative to the ubiquitous Honda CR-V, what with its roomy interior, comfortable ride, and impressive fuel economy all wrapped in an attractive, affordable package. There have been some complaints about the Tucson's lack of power, but the crossover's 176 horses are comparable to that of the CR-V (180).

Over the last few years, Korea's auto giant Hyundai has experienced a renaissance. Quality has risen, style has become modern, and the driving experience is as good as any of its competitors from Japan. When the Azera rolled into our test garage, the overwhelming response was, "Oh yeah, that's still around."
The Azera is old school Hyundai, designed when the company had just started to figure out what needed to be done to play with the big boys, but couldn't quite execute it. Everything on the Korean midsize is developed to 7/10. It still seems like this is the test car for newer, better cars like the Genesis and the new Sonata. It isn't necessarily a bad car; it just isn't what we know Hyundai is capable of.

Hyundai is worried. The company has seen an alarming increase in the use of asterisks by the auto industry and has embarked on a mission to stamp out the problem, starting with its new 2011 Hyundai Elantra.

The only real thing "wrong" with the old Elantra, really, was that it was about as interesting to look at as a bar of soap. That didn't stop Hyundai from completely reworking its bread-and-butter compact, and the result is an impressive pole vault from forgettable to formidable.