In advance of the Geneva Motor Show, taking place the first week of March, Hyundai has unveiled its coolest concept ever – a design exercise done with students from the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin, Italy.
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According to MotorAuthority.com, the concept vehicle, called the PassoCorto, will be "mid-engined, rear-drive in layout, the car would use a downsized 1.6-liter bi-turbo four-cylinder gasoline engine and weigh just 1,850 pounds thanks to a carbon fiber monocoque chassis."
The PassoCorto (which roughly means to move forward shortly) was designed as a sports car for Millenials designed by Millenials. It all sounds great but re-read the paragraph above: it's just not realistic that Hyundai will invest the money to build a super lightweight sports car (and anything less than a 2000 lbs. can be considered super lightweight) let alone one built on a carbon fiber monocoque chassis. It would be prohibitively expensive for most Millenials (as well as preceding generations).
What can we derive from this design exercise that might hit the showroom floors? It could be a next-generation Veloster. The 1.6-liter bi-turbo engine could produce a lot of power. It's worth noting even the Veloster weighs 2574 lbs. in its lightest trim.
Here's some more info about the PassoCorto, which "draws a compact cabin around supercar-style proportions, with large, defined wheel arches and aggressive forms. Like modern Grand Prix cars the vehicle's exhaust pipes exit from the top of the engine cover, while the lack of a rear window is made up for with a rear-vision camera."
So, what aspects of Hyundai PassoCorto do you think could pass European or US safety standards? Appeal to young, sports car buyers? It's a great design exercise but it would be cooler if a hot new concept could be designed that actually had some basis in reality. Then maybe Gen Y and Millenial consumers could get excited about driving again.
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