Why is "N" so Important to Hyundai? #blogpost

If you still haven’t heard about Hyundai’s new sport division “N” then you’ve been living under a rock recently.
Anyway fast Hyundais are on the way wearing the “N” badge (N stands for Namyang) and the first car to receive this treatment is the i30 hatch. the so-called i30 N is expected to take on the likes of the Golf GTI and Focus ST but for real this time in terms of horsepower and driving dynamics; so forget about the Veloster Tubo and i30 Turbo Warm-hatches beacuse this i30N means serious bussiness. Even a “Performance Package” will be offer to compete agaisnt the Focus RS and the Civic Type R with an all-wheel drive option under consideration. Even though I’m talking about a car that hasn’t been unveiled yet here are some of the reasons why “N” looks promising

The Man Behind N

Albert Biermann is probably a name you are not too familiar with, but what about BMW? Well this man was Vice president engineer at BMW’s M division actually he led the development of such spirited sports cars as the M3, M4 and M5 as head of BMW’s M performance division. In 2015 he joined Hyundai as Executive vice president for vehicle testing and high performance development, so if we talk about experience he has it all, right?

It Will Feature Motorsport Technology

This N project was born tight with a WRC program, so all the experience and technology gathered from it would make it to road cars. Hyundai joined the WRC back in 2013 and has already built 2 WRC spec i20, also an R5 car is due to debut this year.

Hooned at Nurburgring

Yeah, James May may not like this one…
The i30N test mule has been given the “Nurburgring” treatment too. More than 490 laps around the “Green Hell” to tune the handling. Hyundai also raced a prototype i30 at the latest Nurburgring 24 Hour with a brand new 2.0 turbo engine; which is going to be feature on coming N cars.

Expect all the Goodies

Hyundai introduced an RM14 (Racing Midship) in 2014, this car has suffered different changes and evolutions through the next two years after that. This is a Laboratory car for the N division, so many mechanical componentes will eventually make its way to Hyundai road cars.
This RM16 concept features a 2liter engine producing around 300hp thanks to a “electric turbocharger”.
This car sends the power to the rear wheels through a six speed manual transmission, underneath sits an aluminium and carbon fibre based chasis and an electronically controled LSD.
The RM16 car only weights 1.260kg.

Thats all, thanks for reading it :)