We may have seen a rendering of this tuning project by Rides Magazine a month ago, but it was nothing compared to the beautifully sleek and gorgeous Hyundai Sonata Turbo we see before us. This vehicle has jumped our list of must-see SEMA-bound automobiles.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The midsize sedan game is one of the most competitive areas in the automotive industry. There are so many players and not much room on the all-star team and as of now, the only Hyundai that has ever made its way onto this exclusive team is the wonderfully styled Sonata, a vehicle that has become the benchmark in terms of sedan styling.

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.

Is the 2012 Toyota Camry new and special enough to vanquish the Hyundai Sonata? Is the SE model a poor man's sport sedan? Is Toyota's rebound in J.D. Power & Associates' initial quality rankings, and the company's vindication over specious unintended acceleration claims, enough to warrant purchase consideration? Do you experience headaches, dizziness, or nausea when driven swiftly in a sports car?

Toyota Camry. Honda Accord. Nissan Altima. This Japanese trio has dominated North America's midsize sedan game for awhile now. But recently, the competitive set has grown not only in size to include the Fusion, Sonata, Malibu, Legacy, Jetta, etc., but in overall amenities. Long gone are the days when automakers could entice customers with power windows, automatic door locks, and that oh-so-convenient cruise control.

The current Hyundai Genesis Coupewent on sale in United States dealerships back on February 26, 2009. It was a pretty cool sports car powered by a 2.0-liter DOHC inline four-cylinder that delivered 212 HP and 217 lb.-ft. of torque, but for 2011,

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.

"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.