ShareThisIt's not impossible. You can get sensible shoes with style, especially if they are of the sport variety like driving shoes or cross-trainers.
The same thing applies to automobiles. It is possible to get a sensible car that also has style and even a certain amount of flair: witness the 2009 Hyundai Elantra Touring.
The Elantra is the South Korean manufacturer's contender in the competitive compact-car segment of the market. With the Touring model, the company takes matters to a more desirable and useful level.
It is a small station wagon, though it looks like a modern crossover hatchback, with as much interior space for passengers and cargo as a full-size car. Despite its practical layout, it has distinctive styling, especially the rear view, reasonably tidy exterior dimensions, a relatively light weight, decent fuel economy and a competitive price.
The Elantra Touring is yet another example of the surge in the U.S. automobile market by the South Korean vehicle manufacturers Hyundai and Kia. Both are owned by the same company but the model lineups, though they share components here and there, are different, with Kia tending toward the sporting side of the spectrum while Hyundai offers a full lineup including the Genesis luxury car and sports coupe.
Overall, the Elantra Touring is the sort of vehicle that could please a lot of customers except for one drawback that is not its fault. That is American buyers' traditional preference for standard sedans and rejection of small wagons and hatchbacks.
It's a phenomenon that makes no sense but likely will limit sales of the Elantra Touring, a shame because this is an endearing example of people-oriented automotive design.
Start with interior comfort. The front seats, covered in a durable cloth on the test car, are softly comfortable with enough support for long trips. The steering wheel tilts and telescopes and, with the manual adjustments on the driver's seat, almost anybody should be able to find a good driving position. Sun visors on both sides slide on their support rods to block light from the side.
The instruments have legible white markings on a black background and the digital readouts glow in bright blue. Standard equipment includes XM satellite radio and the test car had options that included Bluetooth communications, an iPod cable, a tilt-and-slide power sunroof, heated front seats and 17-inch alloy wheels.
In back, the outboard passengers enjoy limousine-like stretch-out room, and even the center-rear passenger, despite a hump on the floor, gets a decent seat -- a rarity in most cars.
Out back, there's 24 cubic feet of stash space, part of which can be hidden away under a cargo cover. Fold the rear seats and you more than double the cargo room. It's all easily accessed through the rear hatch. The interior space is nearly comparable to that of the three-row Mazda5, a more expensive small minivan.
Next check the performance. The Elantra Touring is economy oriented, so you're not going to compete fender to fender with sports sedans. Handling is competent with a good steering feel but is not surgically precise. On rough roads, ride motions get unsettled. The 138-horsepower four-cylinder engine delivers adequate acceleration and cruising power with no embarrassment in the stoplight sprints or merging into freeway traffic.
On the test car, the five-speed manual gearbox that carried the engine's power to the front wheels was a disappointment. It shifted easily and the clutch action was smooth, but the linkage was sloppy. Also, given the relatively low-powered engine, a six-speed manual would be welcome. Of course, most buyers won't have to worry about the shift linkage because they'll choose the four-speed automatic transmission, which costs an additional $800.
Despite the shortcoming in the shift linkage, the Elantra Touring has enough of a sporting feel to take it out of the ho-hum economy category.
Its shape is similar to that of the less-expensive Honda Fit, though it is quite a bit larger. It is more than a foot longer than the Fit, weighs almost 450 pounds more, and has 10 cubic feet more of passenger space and slightly more room for cargo. Yet its highway fuel economy, at 31 to the gallon, is two more than the Fit's.
The stick-shift test car had a base price of $18,495. With the aforementioned options, it topped out at $20,445. The standard equipment is extensive, especially in the safety department, with antilock brakes, traction and stability control, side air bags and side-curtain air bags, tire-pressure monitoring, pre-tensioned seat belts and active head rests on the front seats.
Other comfort and convenience equipment rounded out the package, including air conditioning, a cooled glove compartment, remote locking, cruise control, power windows and mirrors, steering-wheel audio controls, fog lights, a trip computer and a leather-wrapped steering wheel.
Hyundai has had a reputation for offering bang for the bucks, combined with a long-term warranty. Of late, it has also steadily improved its quality ratings to the point where buyers don't beware as much as they once did. The Elantra Touring contributes to the growing aura.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. For more columns, go to scrippsnews.com)
DriveWays with ELANTRA-SPECS
