Road Test: 2013 Hyundai Elantra

By Shari Prymak

The latest redesign of the Hyundai Elantra sedan caused quite a stir when it arrived for model year 2011. Everything, from the design to the feature content, was so dramatic in its execution, especially when compared to the ho-hum same old that you got from the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla. Clearly, Canadian consumers thought so as well, because the Elantra came within a hair of topping the best-selling Honda Civic in sales.

To be honest, I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. I think the styling of the Elantra sedan, which everyone caught onto, is just too overwrought. With all its curves and waves all over the sheet metal, it looks as though it was drawn by a designer who was intoxicated during the process. Fortunately though, Hyundai has expanded the Elantra lineup to include a two-door coupe and, the subject of this review, a five-door hatchback GT, and I’ll say that the fluidic sculpture styling translates much better onto the latter version. As a nice bonus, as with all hatchbacks, the GT offers a generous cargo area that the sedan counterpart couldn’t hope to match.

The interior too is a very nicely executed place. There are plenty of well-designed surfaces and storage places, plus a huge amount of equipment. My test car, a top-of-the-line SE Tech model, was equipped with navigation, a backup camera, a giant panoramic sunroof, smart key entry, climate control, and leather seats with power driver seat adjustment. Overall, the Elantra GT lineup offers a good amount of kit. Even the base GL model includes air conditioning, heated seats, Bluetooth and USB connectivity. My only complaint was with the audio display screen, which didn’t have a logical display of artists, playlists, and so on for my USB connected media device like other cars offer. Instead, and quite annoyingly, I had to scroll through all my ipod tracks in a random order.

The Elantra GT comes with the same 148hp 1.8L 4-cylinder engine and pair of 6-speed transmissions as the sedan. On the bright side, the engine offers enough power to satisfy most driving conditions. The fuel economy isn’t bad either. I averaged about 8.5L/100km in mixed city and highway driving. On the downside, the engine sounds and feels rather coarse when pushed to its upper limits, a bit like a straining chainsaw.

The driving experience too showed some limitations. The Elantra GT offers a ride/handling balance that’s fine enough, but there are other manufacturers who have put more effort into this area to get right. The Elantra isn’t as fun and confidence inspiring to drive spiritedly as the Mazda 3, nor is it as smooth and refined as the Ford Focus when driven in a laidback manner. But that being said, as a city runabout, and even as a highway cruiser, it strikes a balance of handling and comfort that the average small car buyer should be more than fine with.

The Elantra GT starts at $19,149 for a manual GL model, and climbs as high as $26,349 for an automatic SE Tech model, which makes it price competitive with other similarly equipped small cars, if not as a great of a value as Hyundai’s of the past. Although it doesn’t strike me as quite the superb overall package as, say, the Ford Focus hatchback, the Elantra GT does have its own redeeming qualities, like a great comprehensive factory warranty (5 years / 100,000km) and a great reputation for reliability. At the end of the day, the Elantra GT remains a solid choice for someone looking for a nice blend of practicality, efficiency, high feature content, and, as a first, a bit of style as well.