The Hyundai Sonata

FROM AN unknown entity a few years ago, the South Korean car major, Hyundai has established itself in India as one that sells and services quality automobiles. Barely a decade ago nobody had heard of this name and in Europe and other advanced countries, not even a second glance was given to a car made by Hyundai. But times have changed and so has the automobile scene.

After the runaway success of the Santro in the small segment and the relative success of the Accent in the mid-segment, Hyundai is now ready to introduce a model in the luxury segment in India - the Sonata. For India, the Sonata has a 2,000cc engine breathing through 16 valves, coupled to a 5-speed manual transmission. Power is expected to be around 138 bhp, though this may be lowered slightly for India, to take into consideration the quality of fuel.

The Sonata drew mixed reactions from people seeing it. While ``Car'' magazine of England called it ``ugly'', many in India found the face distinctly appealing as it has a somewhat close resemblance to the Santro. The rear end is especially beautiful and has a curvy `oriental' look about it. The design of the tail- lights is also nice, blending into the curvaceous rear. The front end is wide, with a `grinning' grill look, which again is quite similar to the Santro's grinning front grill. Fog lights in the front apron make it easier to drive during rains or other low- visibility conditions; and at the same time they may be used as extra driving lights. Again, the front headlights are fairly powerful owing to their innovative design. Special mention must be made of the 5-spoke alloy wheels which look superb. They are usually mated to low profile tyres, but for India, it might ride a little higher.

The car we got for our test drive featured leather upholstery; but the car launched in India would feature fabric interiors. A funny thing we noticed was that for such a highly specified car, there was only one airbag for the driver and no airbag for the front passenger and no side airbags either; but then in all fairness the final specification for the car to be launched here has not been decided. The rear seat has a folding armrest with built in storage space and cup-holders.

Auxiliary 12-volt power points for charging cellular phones or other similar devices are provided. A thoughtful touch is the illuminated keyhole to help you insert the key at night and the interior lights that turn off after you start the car. Imitation wood flows around in bits and pieces around the cabin. What did surprise us though was that the sound system (it was not even compatible to a CD-changer!) was very ordinary - the kind you would expect to find in the Maruti 800 and not in a car costing Rs. 12 lakhs. The boot was big but quite shallow. A lot of useful cubbyholes abound in the car and places for keeping that odd knick-knack somehow seem to abound.

The air-conditioning is also excellent. The car we had was fitted with a `climatronic' - a system that senses the ambient air outside the vehicle and maintains the interior temperature automatically.

Curiously, there are no rear vents for the air-conditioning system so back seat passengers do tend to suffer slightly in peak heat. The `climatronic' system, we are pretty much sure, will not be available in India.

Performance of the car is on a par with the rest of the contenders, though it is nothing out of the ordinary. The V6 we had however seemed quite thirsty on fuel, averaging about 6 km to the litre - that's steep! One consolation here is that the Sonata for sale in India will feature a 2.0 litre engine, so fuel consumption can be expected to be around 8 km to the litre.

The automatic transmission that came with the car was a simple 4- speed affair with no programs or 'intelligence' built into it. This was more than evident when running down flyovers as it did not perform any engine-braking, but simply let the car run as it was doing normally. This is, however, not a genuine quibble as again we are sure that the automatic will not be available for India.

The Sonata nevertheless is a very good car in the segment it is aimed at. Direct competition will come from Skoda's Octavia and Daewoo's Nubira II. Both these are great machines too, but the Hyundai Sonata has all the attributes of a winner and should give a keen fight to everyone else.

Tutu Dhawan

(The author can be contacted at: anything@tutudhawan.com)

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